Can Touch ID unlock a personal SSH key? Is it possible to use the Touch ID fingerprint reader to unlock my SSH key?

I have a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, and I have a traditional text passphrase for my SSH key right now.

I have noticed that I don't get a system dialog asking for my passphrase on 10.12, so this probably isn't a thing, but if I could do it, it would be AMAZING.

Update:

One option is add your private SSH key to macOS Keychain, then use TouchID for Keychain authentication. You will want to use ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/[your-private-key] -- however on macOS 10.12 Sierra the feature needs to be enabled by editing editing ~/.ssh/config and adding:

Host * (asterisk for all hosts or add specific host)
   AddKeysToAgent yes
   UseKeychain yes
   IdentityFile <key> (e.g. ~/.ssh/userKey)

For details, read:

Permanently add your private key to Keychain so it is automatically available to SSH
Saving SSH keys in macOS Sierra keychain

Original:

At present TouchID unlocking of an SSH key is not available for macOS.

The sudo-touchid Xcode project demonstrates how to build a command line application that is TouchID enabled and fails over to a passcode dialog. It runs on the 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. However, it is for sudo, not ssh. This indicates that the idea is technically feasible.
The Prompt 2 SSH client has TouchID support -- for iOS, not macOS. This indicates that comparable applications might become available from commercial developers.
One developer online started an ssh touchid wrapper project a few months ago -- although it is an empty project stub. This indicates that others may be asking a similar question to yours.

You could easily write an wrapper to translate touchid calls into ssh and back again. Even further translate a ~ possible match into a range sequence (think close but incomplete painting) - no magic there. I used the camera for that before when touchid seemed like a tricorder feature from star trek :-)

Try making such App yourself, a good motivation to learn Swift! Apple has good doc's around all of their SDK's so after initial pain of Xcode you can do it in few days.

Seems like a good idea to use the feat. even when everybody will tell you of gazillions possible security risks that are, well, possible (like a lot of other things). You will need a dev account though (99$/year...), since self-signed apps cant access all macOS SDKs functionalities, touchID is (possibly) not accessible without signing.


How I was able to play Apple Music in the car with disabled cellular data? I'm travelling outsude my home country and my data roaming is turned off on my iPhone, the car is rented Mini Cooper Countryman 2017. I usually connect the iphone via USB or Bluetooth and the car multimedia is paired with it. I don't use Apple Car Play (the multimedia screen looks like native Mini Cooper multimedia).  The strange behaviour that I figured out is that I have no music downloaded on my iPhone (doublechecked it, i have big library though) but while connected to the car multimedia I'm able to navigate the music library from car display and listen arbitrary music from the library. This music is not downloaded nor the mobile internet icon is showing up on the iphone status bar. How can the car multimedia play music?

You were likely able to play music that had been cached locally on your device. Apple Music caches songs as you play them so that, if you play them again, they play locally from your device.

In the future, if you're inclined to test out this theory, you can clear your Apple Music cache prior to a trip and then observe whether you're able to play any music.

Either you are wrong in having no music stored on the iPhone, and you have indeed got songs stored - or you're wrong about having no Internet connection. If you have no cellular connection, you could be connected via WiFi. Some cars offer WiFi with a SIM-card in the car.

In essence, there's no magic ether of Apple music flying around that the phone can tap into.


60w charger only delivering 5.5w to battery? I've just bought and installed a replacement battery for my 15" late 2012 MBP (non retina).

The battery is not OEM but from iFixit as they are in my opinion the next best thing.

I was interested to see how the new battery fares, so I installed this battery monitor app to see how it was. See screenshot of report from battery app monitoring app below.

I'm currently charging on a 60W original Apple charger (as I understand it,  the 85W is optimal, but not necessary).

Is it correct that the charging with value = 5.5w, shouldn't it be c. 60w?

I'm also getting very long estimated charge times, it first started at c. 5hrs, and was slowly charging. But now it seems to be slowing down at around 40% charge, and is saying time to fill the battery is c. 10hrs.

Is it correct that the charging with value = 5.5w, shouldn't it be c.
60w?

This is expected behavior.
The 60W rating on the power adapter is the maximum amount of power that the adapter will supply.  Note that it's not the amount that will be "pushed," but the amount that can be drawn from it.
Slow Charging Speed

... for my 15" late 2012 MBP (non retina)...I'm currently charging on a 60W original Apple charger (as I
understand it, the 85W is optimal, but not necessary).

This is an incorrect assumption on your part.  The 2012 15" MacBook Pro requires the 85W charger - see Apple:  Find the right power adapter and cable for your Mac notebook
This is why you're seeing the very long charging times - your MacBook Pro is "asking" for more than your adapter can deliver and since the adapter can't supply any more, it lowers the power to the battery charger in favor of the compute requirements.
Your MacBook has two operations going on: powering the system and charging the battery.  In this scenario, priority is given to powering the system.  If you were to shut it down, the priority would naturally go to charging the battery.
Seeing only 5 to 6W of power being allocated to a running computer is perfectly fine (for the 60W charger); the power is being divided to account for your current use.  Use the correct charger and it will operate and charge correctly.
Further Reading
There's additional questions/answers on this very topic.  Please see the following links for further reading:

Danger of damaging 13" macbook pro by charging it with 85w charger?

MacBook 2007 charger

Other than speed, is there a reason that a 10W iPad charger shouldn't charge a new MacBook Pro 2016?

TL;DR
You're using the wrong charger.  Get the 85W charging adapter and your charge times will decrease to normal levels.

This would be normal if your MBP is using lots of power itself. You can check this with Activity Monitor. Or a simple experiment: Turn brightness all the way down and see if you charge quicker. If the Mac is turned off, it should charge reasonably fast.


Can't download Mavericks - I got a Mountain Lion CD, what to do? This is the most silly question I'll ever ask, and I'm sorry for this.

But doing the following:

Step 1: https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/os-x-mavericks/id675248567
Step 2: http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/

I assumed there would be at least ONE way of downloading Mavericks, since.. It's free.. But aparently Apple assumes that 2014 was the year of removing download buttons?

I have a blank Mac Book Pro 2010.
This in turn has a OS X 10.8 DVD with it.

All I need, is to reinstall the machine!
I do not have a friend with a mac. I do not have a Apple store near by. I don't have Itunes (and can't install it either).
I do however have a DVD burner, a extremely fast internet and I don't mind fiddling in the command promt.

Any ideas what I could do? Again, sorry for this shitty question, been reinstalling Machines for over 15 years but never have a machine been this much of a headache.

Update:

This is what the site looks to like me...

For those who don't understand the dilemma of me having a 10.8 DVD.
According to their own forums, they've discontinued 10.8 as a installation option from the app store. They referr you to the Mavericks installation which should be a two press installation.. Assuming you have Another apple Product near by.

"This item is temporarily unavailable. - Please try again later"

image http://www.technobuffalo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/mountainlion-issue.jpeg

Here you go with the screen shot of download button.

Install OSX 10.8. Should be no problem on a 2010 MacBook Pro.
Boot the new system, launch AppStore and install 10.9.

Did you do this? Why do you involve a Windows 7 machine (which cannot help you here) ?


Where did the button to hang up the phone from the lock screen go on iOS 10 Since upgrading to iOS 10 I've noticed that often when I want to hang up a call, I now have to unlock the phone, navigate to the phone app to finally press the red "hang up" button.

Previously there would be some basic phone controls like "Mute" and "Hang up" even if the phone decided to lock while you were on the call.  Now all I see is the contact information and call duration where the clock would be and "Press home to unlock" on the bottom.  No phone controls.

How can I reenable the phone controls on the lock screen?

On the lock screen in iOS 10, a swipe right gets you to that new lock info screen (this used to get you call controls), a swipe left gets you the camera.  I had the same reaction, how do I get to call controls?!?

It turns out, you just need to tap the phone number or contact name displayed on the lock screen, and you will get the call controls.  This makes sense, in hindsight, as the swipe right now has a new behavior, but it wasn't obvious to me either.

Also, the sleep/wake physical button hands up the phone, so that's often easier than using the screen in many situations.

This is definitely a bug. Tapping on home button does not work for me as it pulls up unlock code screen - I need this feature still so that family members can use my phone. My hands are too small to reach the top of the screen while operating the phone with one hand (i.e while driving). I have never been so frustrated with iOS, nor felt so unsafe while driving.


Will a sata3 SSD work properly on a Mac mini (Mid 2010) with 2.4 GHz CPU? I have a Mac mini (Mid 2010) with 2.4 GHz CPU and willing to upgrade its HDD to SSD.

Can I use a sata3 SSD for it?

Yes, you can.

Here are the theoretical bus speeds

SATAI   - 150 MB/sec - 1.5 Gb/sec
SATAII  - 300 MB/sec -  3 Gb/sec
SATAIII - 600 MB/sec -  6 Gb/sec

In theory, a very fast drive could saturate a SATA2 bus, but if it does, it will still send the data, just slower than it's capable of.  If that bothers you, just buy a slower SATA2 SSD drive.

Regardless, you'll be very happy with the performance upgrade over a slower drive.  It's the best upgrade investment you can make.

Nope, because SATA3 in a Mini began with the 2011 models, or with Core i5/i7 processors. The SSD would saturate the SATA2 bandwidth, but I don't see why you would spend more money for the little extra speed it's gonna give you. Stick with SATA2 SSDs is my advice.


Apple MacBook Pro display shows black screen I have a MacBook Pro 15 inch 2015 model. Until yesterday it worked fine. But now it shows a black screen. But when I connect to external display through HDMI it works fine.

Is there any solution to solve that problem?

Unfortunatly, it looks like a hardware issue.

Use the external monitor to see what you are doing and go to the system preferences and check the settings. Check the monitor preferences and see if it listed. Try turning the brightness all the way up.

If it is a 2015 model and less than 1 year old Apple should repair it for free. If you have AppleCare extended warranty they will repair it for 3 years for free. Take it to an Apple Store or an Apple approved repair vendor.

It's display cable problem dude check cable connector by opening display case


Convert audio to OGG format via Terminal Is there an app or a method that I can use from Terminal to convert audio files to the OGG format?

I know about afconvert but that doesn't provide the ogg format that I want.

Ogg is a container format. It typically uses the Vorbis audio codec. You can download a static build of ffmpeg and use the bundled libvorbis encoder:

ffmpeg -i input.wav -c:a libvorbis -qscale:a 5 output.ogg

According to the Vorbis encoding guide, the quality range is from 0–10, where 10 is the highest quality and 3–6 are a good range to try. In the above example we used 5 as quality.

have a look at sox and ffmpeg they should do it.

ffmpeg -i file.mp3 -acodec ogg file.ogg

i think that was the command i used. not sure used to be a long time ago.

also have a look here why you probably wont do a conversion: https://askubuntu.com/questions/147944/bulk-batch-convert-mp3-files-to-ogg-via-command-line


How do I input ^ instead of ˆ In my iMac 21.5-inch computer (OS X El Capitan Version 10.11.1) I have a cordless keyboard.

At the top of the key 6 I have ˆ instead of ^.

This is a problem. I never have needed to use ˆ, however ^ I need to use it very often. For example, formatting formulas at Math Stack Exchange with MathJax.

Therefore I need to look it up in the Internet.

Is there a special shortcut for having an input of ^? Or is there a way to change my keyboard inputs?

You need to go to Keyboard Preferences and add a new keyboard.

Instead of using USA International keyboard you will need to use USA Keyboard.

So from

Use instead

When you are going to add a Keyboard you select English.
At the end of the list you will see both keyboards. Use the one that is not international.

Another option is to put the ˆ and before you press another key, press the space bar.

Try pressing Alt + I That's an 'i', not a lowercase L  'l' or '1'. If that doesn't work, switch to a new keyboard.


Can MacBook Pro be used 18 hrs daily? I am using a 13-inch Mid 2012 MacBook Pro that I got about an year ago. I am a writer and work primarily on Word, Safari & Preview. And I work on the machine for an average of about 16-18 hours a day.

It's become slow several times and I have already re-installed the OS twice. I installed Mac OS X 10.9.4 Mavericks after it was released and I upgraded my RAM so that it has 10 GB of RAM instead of the standard 4 GB RAM.

Still the MacBook Pro has become slow again and—more problematically—it has started shutting down without any warning or any notice after re-start.

I cleaned the Mac, reset SMC and increased the free space on it. Still the crashing problem continues.

Sudden shut-downs I would always attribute to heat - dust/fluff collecting in the fans & heat sink fins. It takes more than a quick run-round with a duster or a can of air to properly clean out the fins; it needs splitting open & getting in properly - even so far as replacing the heat sink paste.
It's not a job for a beginner, especially on a laptop, but the guys at the Genius bar ought to be able to steer you in the right direction.

You, also, might try a laptop stand that elevates the machine and/or has fans or some other kind of cooling component built-in.

That duration of daily work would really be more appropriate for a desktop computer. For that matter, desktop computers are the more logical choice for any work which does not require bringing a specific computer into the field and/or around to various locations throughout the workday. Not only are you putting excessive wear on the machine, you're putting excessive wear on your body. Ergonomically, you want a screen to be eye-level when your head is facing straight ahead and a keyboard to meet your hands where your shoulders and elbows are at their natural positions of bent rest. This is impossible with a laptop and results in notable damage to the neck and wrists, initially, with other spinal and hip problems to follow. For the sake of your body, which cannot be replaced at the Apple Store when it goes bad, please, look into getting an iMac or Mac Mini.


When does Messages message via iMessage vs. SMS? This is probably an embarrassingly noobish question.

I sent a standard SMS text message from my iPhone 6 to a colleague's iPhone, who mentioned that my message was green and not blue, and that meant I hadn't activated something or wasn't using the right app to take advantage of iMessaging.

Currently I don't use apps beyond what came with my phone. To send SMS text messages I use the green callout balloon button that's near the phone button.

My colleague said I could save money by using iMessage instead of paying for each SMS text message. I countered by saying that if it's not SMS then that means I'd have to keep my phone connected to the internet 24/7 to receive messages and I don't do that.

My colleague then said something like it does but doesn't use SMS, so I wouldn't have to maintain an internet connection 24/7 to receive prompt iMessages and yet would not have to pay for SMS messages when I did.

A quick search turns up plenty of tutorials about how to use iMessages but so far I have not found a clear and concise explanation.

Is it possible to explain in a few clear sentences how the messaging functionality works on my iPhone 6 and when internet is used and when traditional SMS messages are used? For example:

Does it check first for an active internet connection on the sender's phone?
Does it also check if the recipient is also connected to the internet?
Could a message go out as an iMessage and then not be delivered even though the recipient could have received an SMS text message?

To send SMS text messages I use the green callout balloon button that's near the phone button.

You are using the correct app.

  My colleague said I could save money by using iMessage instead of paying for each SMS text message.

Your colleague is absolutely right. At least in this context. iMessage is Apple's Internet messaging service. You can send an iMessage to anyone who has an Apple device (such as iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac desktop or laptop computer etc.). The requirements is that the recipient must have registered their Apple ID with iMessage service and enabled iMessage. Either of email address (Apple ID) or mobile number (associated with your iPhone) can be registered with iMessage and can be used as sending destination.

The same Messages app is used for sending both an iMessage and SMS to contacts and recipients. An SMS is identified with a green bubble while an iMessage is identified with a blue bubble.

Additionally, you need not remain online all the time for iMessage to work, if either the sender of receiver is offline (not connected to the Internet), the sent message gets stored on device or Apple's servers respectively, and dispatched as soon as the Internet connectivity is restored (either via Mobile Data or Wi-Fi). It in a way works for how email works. Unlike some other messaging app, there's no concept of user being "online" or "offline" in iMessage.

When the recipient is either using a non iPhone phone or they don't have their number registered with iMessage service, your text message gets sent as a plain SMS, and all the same restrictions apply (character count, carrier charges). However, iMessage allows you to send text messages, media such as photos and videos and with iMessage apps stickers etc.

It's important to note that iMessage is a service available free of cost and is exclusive to Apple ecosystem of devices.

You can force an iMessage to be sent as a plain SMS if you suspect the recipient may have their Internet connection (Mobile Data or Wi-Fi) turned off, and you want the message to get across as quickly as possible (as an SMS is sent over cellular network).

  Is it possible to explain in a few clear sentences how the messaging functionality works on my iPhone6 and when internet is used and when traditional SMS messages are used?

Answers below inline:

  Does it check first for an active internet connection on the sender's phone?

No. Sending iMessage has nothing to do with active connection on recipients end.

  Does it also check if the recipient is also connected to the internet?

No. The recipient gets the message whenever they turn on Internet on their device. The messages you sent are held on Apple's computers in the meanwhile.

  Could a message go out as an iMessage and then not be delivered even though the recipient could have received an SMS text message?

If a message is sent out as iMessage, it will indeed get delivered (as long as their number is registered with the iMessage service) when the recipient turns on Internet on their device.

P.S.: I can direct you to this excellent document online officially maintained by Apple, which explains iMessage service and it's features in an easy to understand way.

Messages for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac

Force Messages app to send a text message as SMS instead of an iMessage

Here's a workaround that you can use to force the Messages app to send a test message as SMS instead of iMessage to a contact's phone number. It is slight clumsy, but gets the job done in the scenarios like you described:

If you have Internet access available on your iPhone via either Mobile data or Wi-Fi (indicated by the presence of appropriate icon in the iPhone's status bar), and the receivers contact number is registered with iMessage, you'll only be able to send an iMessage, irrespective of the online/offline status of the recipient. You can check if a message would be sent as an iMessage by the presence of a blue colored upward facing arrow besides your typed text message.

To force the message to be sent as SMS instead, temporarily turn off Mobile Data/Wi-Fi on your iPhone to disable Internet access. You'll still only be able to send an iMessage (Blue arrow icon) as your iPhone knows that the receiver is registered with iMessage. Send the message normally.

The message won't get sent from your iPhone due to the absence of an Internet connection. Now tap an hold on the message bubble, and you'll see an alert at the bottom of the screen with an option that says Send as Text Message. This option is not shown when you have Internet connectivity on your iPhone, or the message is already delivered to the Apple's servers.

This will cause your iPhone to re-send the message as SMS. The receiver will be able to get the message even in absence of the Internet connection on their device (as long as they have cellular connectivity on their device).
Don't forget to turn Mobile Data/Wi-Fi back on on your device to regain access to Internet.

iMessages are sent via the internet (cellular data or Wi-Fi).
SMS messages are sent only via cellular service.
iPhones should generally have cellular data service any time they have "phone" service. So when you can send an SMS, you should also generally be able to send an iMessage. And same for your recipient immediately receiving them.
(This of course depends on your phone plans and specific coverage/network issues.)

This is a perfect use-case for SMS; if their phone is turned on, they'll almost certainly get it within a few minutes. But if we've started to use iMessage then they won't get it until they go home and connect to the internet because I've essentially e-mailed it to them. Have I got the basic idea correct?

You do not need to be connected to your home Wi-Fi network in order to send iMessages. They are also sent and received via a cellular data plan, on the go, just as conveniently and reliably as SMS.
iMessage is also especially good when you do not have cellular service. If you're ever able to connect to Wi-Fi, you can send and receive iMessages. But not SMS messages, until you get back to cell coverage. This makes iMessage far more reliable for contacting people who live in spotty cell coverage areas.
iMessage offers huge benefits over SMS: cost, encrypted security, messaging features, reception without cellular service, significantly better group messaging, etc.
Unless there is a specific reason you or your recipient will not have data service on the go, you should use iMessage. The app will fall back to SMS if needed.


To change default map application in iPhone Apple Maps are very inaccurate. They costs my time and money when I use them by accident.
I want to change the default app to Google Maps.

How can you change the default Map application in the newest iOS to Google Maps?

I really would like to delete the Apple Maps from my phone.

You can't change the default app. Some apps give you the option to choose which app to open maps/directions in, but this varies per app and app developer. There is no system toggle and Safari/Siri/etc will continue to open maps in Maps.

Map links from Google Applications in iOS should open in Google Maps: Chrome, Gmail, etc.


Automatically close non-responsive app How can I automatically close an application that is listed as Not Responding in Activity Monitor?
I have one application in particular that I'd like to be killed if it goes non-responsive. I'm thinking I could schedule a script with cron, but I'm not sure what the script would need to be.
macOS 10.7

Tap on the Stop button in the upper-left side of the Activity Monitor window (or use the Touch Bar). Select one of the following options: Quit: This is the same as choosing File > Quit within an app. The process quits when it's safe to do so.


Open Office files from Finder in the same screen When opening files from a Finder window, I want them to open in the active Space, regardless of the application already being open on another Space. Instead, they open in whatever Space already happens to have an open window of the application. I've noticed this particularly with Microsoft Office programs, as I tried to reproduce it with Preview and Terminal windows but they seemed to behave properly, so I think that this problem lies within the MS Office suite.

I imagine that this is related to this question, but this occurs with windows that aren't minimized. Similarly, I've already unchecked three of the options in mission control;

Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use
When switching to an application, switch to a Space with open windows for the application
Group windows by application

If there are any known methods of disabling this behavior it would be much appreciated.

Apple's website:

  If you work in multiple spaces, you can assign apps to particular spaces.

  Press and hold an app’s icon in the Dock. You may have to first open the app from Launchpad to see its icon in the Dock.
  From the shortcut menu that appears over the icon, choose one of these:
  To have the app open only in the current space, choose Options > This Desktop. From now on, the app will open in the current space; if you are working in a different space, the app’s space scrolls into view.

  This setting doesn’t apply to full-screen windows, which always appear in their own separate spaces.

  To have the app open in every space, choose Options > All Desktops. From now on, when the app is open it will appear in every space.

  To have the app open in the space you are currently using, choose Options > None.

  In Mission Control preferences, you can specify that when you switch to an app, your desktop should scroll to a space with open windows for that app.

THis should allow you to choose Office programs to open in that desktop

I have the same issue as agweber.

I like to organise my spaces/desktops according to my work projects, NOT by apps. I therefore may have 3 or 4 desktops, each using several of the same apps.

The dock option for all my apps is "None", rather than "All Desktops" or "This Desktop".

When I open a file on any desktop using a Mac app it will open right there even if the app is already being used on another desktop.

However, if for example an MS Office Word file is open on Desktop 1 and I try opening another Word file when on Desktop 3, it automatically switches to Desktop 1 and opens there, requiring me to drag it back to Desktop 3.  None of the 3 dock options will remedy this.

This only seems to be an issue with the MS Office suite, and I've noticed it's the same whatever the OS X version I've used since 10.6 (I'm currently on 10.11).

It seems MS Office for Mac is not designed to function with Mac desktops in the way native Mac apps do.


A REAL iTunes server on NAS I am certainly not the only one dealing with the issue (looking into questions here which deal with some aspects related to an iTunes Server or looking at the Apple Support Forum). So I ask:

What is a way of having a real (explanation of real follows) iTunes Server on a NAS?

Driving force of course is the desire to centralize my iTunes Library, photos, big data, that I do not want to carry around with my me. Solution: A Network Attached Storage (NAS). For all the other stuff except the iTunes library this solution is great. Of course I can put the library on it BUT:

I will not be able to stream content to my iDevice directly (I could if my Mac is, but not directly)
I cannot tell my library to stream some music to an AirPlay device from my iDevice (again, only if my Mac is on)
In principle: Without any other device(s) running, my library can do nothing. It is not stand alone! To stream content requires additional devices running.

Any NAS that can store any of my data (ok that's every NAS :)) and serves as a stand alone iTunes library I consider a real iTunes Server. I would consider it a real real iTunes Server if I can remote it via Apples Remote App and stream music/videos via Apple appropriate apps  (yes I kinda favor Apples solution whenever available).

I will give myself an answer for one possibility (an additional Mac) with pros and mainly cons. But I am very interested in other solutions (please as well do not hide disadvantages from your proposed solutions)!

One possibility: An additional Mac.

Pros:

Could do everything asked for.

Cons:

Expensive.
Power consuming.
To save some power, one would let it sleep. So everytime one wants to connect to the library, the Mac has to be waked up.
Setup not as easy as NAS.

here is the answer.

rysnas.com/

You can run a VM of windows for iTunes Home Sharing on your NAS box now.


Is it possible to log out of 'mail' on the iPad? I set up my email into the iPad 'Mail' app, and I cannot find how you log out to prevent another user from opening and reading my mail.

Is it possible to log out of 'mail' on the iPad?

As far as I know, this is not possible. iPad is not made to be a multi-user device. I am in a similar situation myself as I share the iPad with my wife but haven't yet fixed it. Some alternatives:

Set a different account as default account in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars. It could even be a dummy account. At least it means email will not be sent accidentally from your address.
In Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > [Your email account], you can turn off Mail temporarily. It does not provide any security though, anyone can just turn it on again.
If you want to guarantee security, you need to use something like Gmail in Safari and login and logout every time.

Go to settings, click mail, click the first button ( the one thats at the top ) , click delete account andd PROBLEM SOLVED!


How can I copy videos and photos to my iPad without syncing? What's the easiest way to get photos and videos on to the iPad without Syncing?
The way sync works is ridiculous; its either all the pictures in a folder or nothing. Basically I want the ability to drag and drop random photos with just a computer and cable available.
No cloud storage options please.

In iTunes, go to the iPad’s (or iPod’s) summary screen. Check the “Manually manage videos” box, and click the “Apply” button. You can then drag videos from your desktop to the iPad without having to sync.


MacBook Pro touchpad not clicking? (Hardware issue?) My hands were a little wet when I touched the touchpad on my MacBook Pro 15". I think that a little water went into the cracks, or the tiny space around touchpad. The "click" mechanism stopped working properly. Multitouch still works perfectly.

I ordered a new touchpad, but NO! Problem remained. Touchpad still only registers "clicks" from bottom left corner.

I use my comp for work (Photoshop, Illustrator).

I tried loosening, tightening the screw on touchpad. Still nada.

Please help?

Edit: I need the physical "click." I use laptop for work. The touch to click does not function well with real work in Illustrator and Photoshop. I don't want to sound like a jerk, but please don't suggest the use of a mouse or "touch to click". These are not real answers to my question.

Check your MacBook's battery. My trackpad stopped clicking consistently, and then sometimes locked in click-down, keeping me from de-selecting things. When I opened it up I noticed that the battery was puffed up a bit. If I removed the battery and closed the case, the trackpad clicked just fine. Apple replaced the battery and all's good.

Since you said that the multi-touch on the trackpad works, one work around is to enable the Tap to click setting in System Preferences > Trackpad:

This way you can tap your trackpad to click instead of having to rely on physically depressing it.


Understanding how safe boot fixed a boot problem Background

My friend asked me to look at her early 2011 Mac Mini with OS X 10.8.3. She said that:

she installed software updates
she couldn't remember which updates were installed
when the Mac restarted, it hung at the Apple logo with the spinning gear wheel.

I used Disk Utility to check permissions and the disk. Both checks found a few errors,  all of which were repaired. This did not help; after I rebooted, it hung at the same screen.

Several resets of the PRAM did not help.

Successes

A safe boot succeeded, the desktop appeared. I re-checked permissions and the disk; no errors.

Then a normal boot succeeded – this surprised me.

Question

Can anyone guess what was wrong and what was fixed?

Since it's not my Mac, and I don't know how it's really used, I can't guess.

I see Apple article HT1564, Mac OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?, I'd like to understand more.

I assume that at least one of the updates required a restart.

As Disk Utility found problems with the file system, it's possible that:

some such problems existed before your friend attempted to install updates; and/or
some such problems arose from a forced shut down or forced restart during a problematic installation (before an automated restart), or force whilst awaiting progress following an automated restart (impatience with the spin).

No mention of force from you or your friend, so let's assume that:

HFS Plus file system problems were present but unknown before installation
those problems caused an apparently successful installation to have a problematic end result.

In the 2013-05-06 edition of Apple's article:

  A Safe Boot deletes the dynamic loader shared cache at (/var/db/dyld/). A cache with issues may cause a blue screen on startup, particularly after a Software Update. Restarting normally recreates this cache.

Not only blue screens.

Alternative symptoms might include hangs of the type seen by you and your friend – the asynchronous progress indicator with the Apple logo.

Also, I do not find that a normal restart recreates that cache. To see whether the cache was recreated, at your friend's Mac in Terminal you might run the following command – be prepared for your friend to enter her administrative password at an on-screen prompt:

sudo update_dyld_shared_cache -verify

If the output indicates that a file does not exist, then there may be:

a problem with Apple's documentation (inconsistent with normal behaviour of the software); and/or
a problem with the software (abnormal behaviour).

If the command completes with no visible output, there's no problem (the file exists and is verified).

Reference

update_dyld_shared_cache(1) Mac OS X Manual Page

Please read this succinct, clear Apple Support document. Asking other Mac enthusiasts, no matter how expert they may be, for this kind of basic technical information makes perhaps less sense than checking out what Apple says, don't you think?

I found this page by googling Apple Safe Boot. Any search engine would do just as well.


How can I force a Mac laptop to shutdown when the battery is below 25%? It is common wisdom that Lithium-Ion batteries should not be left with 0% charge.

However, some users might not be aware of this common wisdom, or simply refuse to concern themselves about proper battery care. For example, an end-user may drain the battery to 0%, then put the computer away without putting it back on the charge. This rapidly diminishes the life of the battery.

Is there any app or setting that will force the computer to turn off when the battery charge is around 25%, to ensure that a healthy reserve is available and damage to the battery is avoided?

I haven't tested this, although something such as this should work:

property lowBattery : 25

on idle
    set battStatus to do shell script "pmset -g ps"
    if battStatus contains "InternalBattery" then
        set {TID, text item delimiters} to {text item delimiters, ";"}
        set battStatus to text items of battStatus
        set text item delimiters to space
        set battStatus to text 1 thru -2 of last text item of item 1 of battStatus as integer
        set text item delimiters to TID
        -- Shutdown if battery is less than 25%
        if battStatus < lowBattery then tell application "loginwindow" to «event aevtrsdn»
    end if
    return 60
end idle

In AppleScript editor save it as an Application using Stay open run handler, then add it to your Login Items under System Preferences > Users & Groups

Have a look at SleepOnLowBattery (“SOLB”):

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/release-sleeponlowbattery-solb.264785/

or

https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/336414-release-sleeponlowbattery-%E2%80%9Csolb%E2%80%9D/

It's open source and you can adapt anything to your liking.


How to actually select the tab that you search for on safari I love how you can search for tabs in safari by typing shift⌘\ and you get something like this

However the most important part to me is actually simply selecting that tab and start using it. Right now after the search I have to leave the keyboard and tap with my mouse, which is a huge productivity fail. I should be able to simply select it with my keyboard. How do I do that?

This is not an answer, but alternative approach(es).

One can use ⌘ + ⇧+/. This will open Safari Help and from that one can enter search word(s). There will be tabs list displayed with status/day (tabs currently open, Recently Closed, Earlier Today, by dates etc) and address. Everything what is available in Safari menus (history, recently open etc) will be displayed. This will work over all tabs, not only tabs in active window. Arrows + enter for navigation and selecting. This is text based and not visual search.

One can also use Window menu on Menu Bar. Last block there is all tabs open in Safari.

One can enable Alternate Control Methods in System Preferences > Accessibility > Pointer Control. Namely "Enable alternate pointer actions" and "Enable header pointer". Then set face expressions for "Left Click" and "Use a switch or facial expression to pause or resume".

If you reach the point displayed on your screenshot switch on head pointer with facial expression ("Raise Eyebrows" for example), move pointer with your head to the tab you want, use facial expression for Left Click ("Pucker Lips Outward" for example), pause head pointer with facial expression. It requires to have camera but it really fun to play with :-) - just raise eyebrows, look at desired tab, pucker lips outward, raise eyebrows.


"iTunes Sync: X items could not be synced. See iTunes for more information." Every time I sync my iPhone or iPad (both running iOS 5) with iTunes, I get this error. iTunes displays no information that I can find about what the mystery six unsynced items are. How do I find out - any ideas?

I haven't got a solution to this yet, but I get the same error (342 items though). The reason appears to be that the iPhone contains 342 hidden voice memos, not appearing within the voice memo app, but viewable (and playable while the iPhone is connected through USB) in the iPhone Device list in iTunes (click the triangle left to the device, see the voice memo playlist).

I will backup and restore to factory setting now. But I'm fearing that the voice memos will be back there when I restore the backup. But then again, I might be lucky.. :)

UPDATE; It did in fact work, I did get rid of the hidden voice memos and the "could not sync" message! Great.

Thoughts on how the hidden memos got there in the first place; I did mess around with the location of the Voice Memos playlist in iTunes, moved it in under a playlist folder, back and forth a couple of times, synced between, in addition to choosing to sync voice memos and not. It was all me testing how the (not intuitive) Voice Memos syncing works. Not sure if this produced the problems though.. but date stamps etc support the thoughts..

This can be a storage issue on your phone, maybe you don't have enough free space on your phone. Try deleting some pictures.


Can I reset Home button sensitivity? I don't have a problem with the button itself, it seems that I need to push deeper to make it work.  I don't have to push harder... just deeper.

I remember someone talking about the "fact" you can reset sensitivity for the Home button of the iPhone.

Does this software sensitivity reset really exists ?

No, wrong. The home button is no sensor in the meaning of a pressure sensor.

For reference see this.

I read it somewhere too, but I guess doing a soft reset will help in resetting home button sensitivity.

"To reset iPhone, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time for at least 10 seconds, until the Apple logo appears."

Nothing is lost during a soft reset.


Why is it not possible to use the "cut" command to manipulate a file in the Finder? On OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), I don't seem to be able to us the "Cut" command on a file in the Finder, like you can do in Windows Explorer on Microsoft Windows. (In Windows, once you select a file and "cut" it, you can then move to a different directory and "paste" the file to that location.)

The only way I can move a file using keyboard or contextual menu commands is to copy the file to another drive or location and then delete the old version of the file.

In the Finder's 'Edit' menu, 'Cut' is in the list but if a file itself is selected, it is always greyed out. 'Copy' is not. Why is this?

Keyboard method: Cmd-C then Opt-Cmd-V does the cut&paste for files on Mac.

Mouse method: Drag the file from one folder to the parent of the target folder (ie, if moving to Documents:Financial, drag to Documents). Hover on the parent folder for a few seconds, and it will spring open. Then you can continue dragging the file to the target folder. (note, the mouse method may result in very long hover times, if you're dragging a huge number of files, eg 1,000 files)

Menu method: It's not part of the Apple menu system to 'cut' files.  The menu Cut option is grayed out, and becomes enabled when text is selected.  But not files. Here is an in-depth discussion on Apple's discussion forum.

another way is to use XtraFinder, there are many nice features including "cut"


Unable to mount Time Machine partition I have a WD external HDD which is plugged into my MacBook Air more or less all the time; it has two partitions one of which is my Time Machine disk. Just today I noticed that the hard drive is not mounting correctly anymore

On boot-up, both partitions do not show up in the Finder at all
When I unplug the drive and replug it back in, only the non-Time Machine partition shows up in Finder. It appears to work like normal i.e. reading and writing (I've already copied all my data off it)
I can't seem to either eject the disk or unmount the partition that is mountable. If I hit the eject button in Finder, the partition name greys out and is not clickable but does not go away.

Via Disk Utility, I am unable to either mount the Time Machine partition (I get the generic not able to mount partition error message) and I am also unable to run Repair disk on it (error message: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.). Screenshot below. I tried erasing the disk but that also did not work (error message: Couldn’t unmount disk.)

It sounds like my hard drive has failed (or is in the process of failing) - the only things that I makes me second guess myself and make me wonder if the disk is salvageable are:

The non-Time Machine partition appears to mount correctly and can be used as usual (although as mentioned above it cannot be unmounted)
The drive is not that old all: probably about 18 months old. I have drives that are older that are still ticking along nicely.

Is this a simple case of a failed drive (perhaps a defective product) or is this a symptom of a software related problem (e.g. there have been several instances where the drive has been unplugged without being ejected correctly)?

I had the same problem and resolved it like this.

Unplugged the drive
Turned off Time Machine in Pref
Rebooted the Mac
Plugged the drive back in
The Time Machine partition mounted

just install the DiskDrill application then connect that HDD(which faces the problem) to your macbook and open DiskDrill application which is in your applications folder on your mac after opening it starts loading your drives then while loading external hdd in this application there is a possibility that this application can detect your problem and after correcting problem mount your disk on your macbook it seems like it unlocks something.

just try this application rather than trying too much commands its 90 % guarrenty that you can resolve your problem using this application.

if loading does not solve your problem then just go ahead and click on rebuild partition in this application.

steps :

install DiskDrill application.
connect HDD(which facing problem) to your mac.
open DiskDrill application.
after opening this application it starts loading your drives.

while loading there is possibility that this application can mount the unmounted drives.
if not
then

wait for load and click on rebuild partition.


Remove email attachments from iPhone After having clicked on an attachment in an email to download and see/read it... is there a way to remove it again? I don't want to delete the email or the attachment from the email server, I just don't want it to take up space on the iPhone.

And also, is there a way to remove all downloaded attachments, so I don't have to go through each email and find which I have downloaded earlier?

The attachments will not remain on the phone past the point that the email itself is in the default number downloaded by Mail (on my iPhone it's 50 most recent messages). Once the message falls out of that, and/or is deleted, its attachments should be removed from the phone memory.

The other way to be entirely sure they are gone is to disable 'Mail' in settings for the account you are using, wait a couple of seconds (let it do its thing) and re-enable. This will purge everything related to that mail account and let you redownload just the messages. If you download a lot of attachments versus the amount of mail you receive, it might be worth doing this on a weekly-or-so basis.

This is same my problem which I had it.I format my phone completely to solve the memory problem. My cell phone was having more than 10 gigabytes of file attachments.


iPhone reports large storage On My Phone, but I can't find that usage [iPhone 11 128GB, running iOS 13.6]
In Settings -> General -> iPhone Storage, On My Phone reports there is 1.16GB on my iPhone. However, if I tap into that section and review all the files there, I see at most 23MB worth of data when I add everything up. Restarting the phone doesn't change the numbers.
Is there some other place I should look to find these "large files?" Is there a known issue of reporting incorrect file sizes? Something else?

Tested this on an unused iPhone. After factory resetting, this screen shows 671 MB used. I have not activated iCloud, TouchID or such. I guess this is system related user data, which is otherwise nowhere accessible. (Caches, fonts, location tracking and temporary data etc.)

Under the part that says xx of yy used is a color scale that shows you what makes up the used portion of memory. That should tell you what is using over a GB of data.  It is probably your photos.


My mac will not let me save word documents I have a MacBook Pro from 2016 and as of this morning I have not been able to save my Word documents (Word 2017). I've never had issues before.

When I press save on a new document, a message pops up saying, "Word cannot save this document due to naming or permissions error on the destination volume." Once I press OK to dismiss the message another message pops up and says the "Document 13" cannot be saved as "New Name". Why is this happening?

The hint here is "... naming or permissions error on the destination volume." Word is telling you that it sees corruption/damage where you want to save the document.

And I'll bet you see it even if you try to save it to a USB key as well.

Microsoft is a great provider for those of us who do tech support for a living. What that error likely means is that something in MS Word (and possibly the rest of MS Office) on your system is damaged. The part is most likely in the part of Word that writes to disk.

What I would do is run the MS Word/Office installer and reinstall (or repair if that option is available) MS Word.

Failing that it could be that the temporary (recovery) file that Word creates for every document is damaged or that the preference file for MS Word is also damaged.
The former is here:

 /Users/<username>/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Library/Preferences/AutoRecovery.

The latter is here:

~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Word.plist

Trash all the autorecovery files and trash the .plist file and launch MS Word again. That should fix it.

If not you may actually have file system damage on your HD. In that case boot into Recovery Mode, launch Disk Utility and repair/verify the disk.

I was getting to the point where I couldn't save a Word document even with a new file name, and at times couldn't even open a previous document. I even changed every permission I could think of.
Finally found the answer on a YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUlEOoDd7Ks).
I am running Mojave 10.14.6 on a Mac Pro.
Here's what you need to do:

Restart your computer, and as soon as you hear the chime (crescendo), press the Command+R and it will open your Mac in Recovery Mode.

Once your computer opens in Recovery Mode, go up to the "Utilities" in the top menu bar. Scroll down to Terminal...click on it to activate the Terminal

Once the Terminal screen opens (it looks a bit like code...which it is) simply type in the following (there's a grayed out box...just start typing...don't use your cursor):

Type the following:  csrutil disable
(That is a space in-between the two command words) Then hit return. You should get a message that it changed the code:
Successfully disabled System Integrity Protection. Please restart the machine for the changes to take effect

Delete the Terminal box using the red button on the upper left corner of the Terminal screen

Under the Apple, go to "restart" and let your computer restart. It worked great on mine...no more permissions issues with Microsoft Word.


What applications enable AirPlay mirroring for Mac? Do any applications enable AirPlay from my Mac to an Apple TV? I am looking to wirelessly mirror my Mac's display to the TV, similar to the way iPad 2 and iPhone 4S can mirror their displays over AirPlay.

Yes - it's coming as a feature for Mountain Lion, but solutions that work now on Lion are much appreciated.

With the new OSX Mountain Lion you will be able to airplay from the Mac to an Apple TV.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/features.html#airplay

I think that what you are after is AirFoil ( http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/ ) which you then use AirFoilSpeakers http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/ios/.

As their website says:

  Play any audio across your network to a whole host of devices, all in sync! Airfoil sends audio to remote speakers including iOS devices, other computers, and hardware devices like the Apple TV and AirPort Express. Airfoil for Mac gives you any audio, everywhere.


Any way to recover Yosemite download from AppStore? When I opened the folder of previously paid-for apps on the AppStore in order to download Yosemite, I inadvertently clicked the "X" mark next to the "Download" button. This removed Yosemite from the list. Any way to get it back?

In the App Store, Store => View my Account, In the Account Information window, the item Hidden Items => Hidden Purchases: Unhide any hidden, redownloadable Purchases.

Click Manage, You'll see a list hidden purchases which you can UNHIDE.

From what I can tell, no.

You can find someone with an Apple ID who has downloaded it though, sign in with their credentials, and redownload it that.


Swapping internal hard drives I have a mid-2012 MacBook Pro into which I had installed an OWC data doubler SSD (removing the optical drive).  I originally placed the SSD in the original HDD bay and moved the HDD to the data doubler bracket in the optical bay.  I would like to switch these around (HDD back to its original bay).  I'm assuming I should be able to switch the two drives around with no negative repercussions to normal operation - i.e. this should not require a reformat/reinstallation of the boot drive (which is the SSD).  Would that be correct?

I don't think that will be a problem, but you may initially need to hold the Alt key while booting and choose the Startup drive. If it still won't boot, reset PRAM with holding altcmdPR while booting.

Just an FYI:  I had a similar setup in a 2011 MBP. It worked great for a while, but I started getting disk errors on the drive in the ex-optical bay. I think the disk interface was just not designed for heavy use


What applications do a good job of using the iPad's retina display for stock data? I have a few leads, but wanted to know what people feel is an excellent stock price data-visualization and data-exploration app on a retina iPad display.

Excellent would include:

very clear data with multitouch features for zooming, selecting price points or data ranges.
more native iOS features than simply a web view app (unless that web view stands on equal ground with a native stock app)
is equal to or better than the iPhone stock app in terms of features, polish, ease of use and data viewing function.
some basic import / export capabilities for portfolio management (extra credit - not mandatory)
simple averages and overlays to see trends and not just the open/close/range volume data (extra credit)
no ads or the option to pay money to avoid advertisements on the screen

Excellent doesn't necessarily mean:

Real-time data feed (although a solution that required a lot of steps to refresh the data on a daily basis would be far less useful than an app that could tap into a feed of data that was market delayed.)
derivative and super complicated analysis lines that are more appropriate for professional trading software (and I would expect to cost hundreds of dollars)
portfolio management
actual trading - I'm looking for historical data - not a platform for executing trades. Don't rule out a trading app if it otherwise meets the requirements and is open to anyone with a reasonably low bar to entry (like opening an account with $50 or such)

It doesn't matter if you need to buy the app or if it has an optional or mandatory data service that feeds the data (but please call that out if makes or breaks the app).

I know that AllMyShares is highly regarded (one of the developers attends my CocoaHeads group in Melbourne) and I've confirmed they are planning a retina display update. If you like it, it might be worth adopting this one.

Here's the website for an overview, lots of videos, screenshots etc.

When it comes to nice looking Data visualisation, I think you should have a look at Roambi Analytics Visualizer, even if I´m not sure if it fulfils all your wishes.


Keyboard shortcuts not working in Safari and Firefox after update to Yosemite After updating two distinct Macs (a MacBook Air and a Mac Mini, both using the same iCloud account) from Mavericks to Yosemite, I noticed the following weird bug:
All keyboard shortcuts in Safari and Firefox (not in Chrome, nor in any other app I've tried) have stopped working. When using a shortcut in Firefox, the corresponding spot on the menu bar is briefly highlighted (for instance, ⌘T flashes File), but nothing else happens; in Safari, not even this menubar flashing occurs.

Weirdest of all: on both browsers, if I first open a menu by clicking on the menubar, then any shortcut works (while the menu is open).

Question: Has anyone else encountered this bug? What would you recommend? Should I notify Apple somehow?

I have had this exact problem for weeks, and it's been driving me crazy, but I've finally found a solution. I found this thread on the Apple Support Communities, where “stevendeluxe” says the following:

  Problem fixed!
  I compared the system preferences for each user and found out that I had several languages activated in the language/region settings. So I deleted the language adding the option "list sort order". This option wasn't activated in my test account.

  You have to try which language is the "bad one" on your system (In my case it was "german"...haha) and delete it. UPDATE: I've tried to re-add the deleted language and still safari works fine.

I did the same, went to “Language & Region” in OS X System Preferences (found in the Apple menu at the top left of the screen), and removed two languages I'd added as a lark (Swiss German and Klingon, to be precise), and after restarting the computer (which OS X requires if you remove the primary language), all my keyboard shortcuts work again. Joy and jubilation.

I hope this works for you, too.

System Preferences -> Language & Region -> Keyboard Preferences -> Keyboard ->  select the "Use all F1, F2, etc..." This toggles between the normal and the special features of the Function keys.


What's a good graphical SFTP utility for OS X? I need a small graphical utility, using which I can ssh to a server and see all the files and copy and paste (drag and drop) into my local machine.

I am running Snow Leopard.

Cyberduck (Free)
A great free FTP client. This is my go-to application. Anytime I need FTP access, I use Cyberduck. It's not quite as lightweight as Fugu, but it adds a lot more functionality than Fugu. I also really like the Growl integration with Cyberduck.

Fugu (Free)
Awesome little FTP client. As I noted above, this is a lightweight FTP client. It is great for simple FTP transfers and browsing. I do like the dual panel navigation.

EDIT: I forgot to add these.
Filezilla (Free)
I haven't actually used Filezilla extensively, but from what I've seen of it, I really like it. I downloaded it and played with it for a bit and I really like the tabbed connections. I also like the ability to jump to a path easily.

RBrowser (Free, $29 Upgrade)
A free FTP/FTP-SSL client. I don't usually use RBrowser because a $29 upgrade is necessary to unlock other protocols (Local, FTP/SSL/TLS, SFTP-SSH). I do like the Site Manager. It's a handy little thing to have.

I searched and came up with some other free FTP clients:
FireFTP (Free) - Firefox extension
The one downside I see is that this is for Firefox. The website doesn't make it clear how it works with Firefox, so I assume it is an extension.
Macfusion (Free)
This one relies on Google's MacFUSE. Since I don't know anything about MacFUSE, I don't know if this is good or bad.
Transmit ($34) By Panic
I have never used Transmit before, but I have used Coda and I definitely would recommend anything from Panic. The only reason I haven't used this because of the $34 price tag.

ForkLift2 ($30)
Never used it, just found it when searching.
Fetch ($24 per user)
An amazing program with a long, long, long mac heritage. It's way up there with Transmit by Panic and Interarchy as a file transfer program loved by long time Mac power users.
Flow ($30)
Never used it, but looks good from the screenshots. I really like the fact that it looks like Finder. I may have to give this one a try.

OneButton FTP (Free)
Just searching around and found yet another one...It looks pretty nice, except it's no longer supported. However, you can still download it.

CaptainFTP is the best choice

Easy to download from itunes:

http://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/captain-ftp/id416544161?mt=12


How to prevent iOS from dimming or changing the screen brightness I have the "Display & Brightness" feature of iOS disabled, and yet the device still dims to a brightness level that is unreadable after about 10secs of inactivity.. How do I turn this off?

iOS dims the display just before the Auto-Lock period.

You can set this period in Settings → General → Auto-Lock.

However, if Settings → Battery → Low Power Mode is set to on, the regular auto-lock setting is disregarded.

You can't. I have my autolock set on after 5 minutes and it auto dims the screen after about a minute, unless I'm watching a video. But if my phone is plugged in, I don't have a problem with the screen dimming.


After upgrade to iOS11, Photo uploads files to icloud even though the phone is on mobile network Before iOS11, the photo app does not upload newly snapped photo to icloud if the phone is still on a mobile app. It will usually say, to the effect, "Upload paused while on mobile network" at the bottom of the 'Photos' section.

However since I upgraded to iOS 11, the photo will upload  regardless the type of network connection. It killed my mobile data! On one weekend, 1 Gb of data was sucked away because of the upload.

Has anyone else encountered this issue? If so, is there a solution?

This is the 'Mobile Data' settings of photo app:

This is an ios11 feature. (I think it is actually a bug because I did not observe this kind of behaviour before)

I find that I put the phone in 'Low Power' mode, the Photo will not attempt to upload the photo automatically.

Now I will turn it on before I take any photo while on mobile network.

One suggestion would be to set Photos to keep full copies of your photos on your iPhone if you have enough space.
Photos and Music are reasons it is better to buy a larger storage iPhone even with iCloud.
When you are on WiFi you just download a full copy of everything.


How to retrieve a PDF file from an iOS device? Given two Macs running Yosemite and one iPad running iOS 8, how do you retrieve a PDF file put on the iPad from Mac 1, using Mac 2 ? Let's say that I don't currently have access to the Mac used to put the file in the first place. I can see the file in the Books section of the device in iTunes, but that's all I can do right now.

Try emailing it to yourself from the iPad.

Have you tried using Air Drop? I've used it several times for sending in retrieving items.


installing windows on external HD I have the problem of installing Windows via bootcamp onto an external Hard drive, I previously installed windows via bootcamp with no problems, Now when I try to do it via online guides to install windows via bootcamp onto my external USB 3 Hard drive, On the select language screen I don't get any function from the track pad or keyboard.

Ive tried to connect USB2 keyboards and mice and it still doesn't work.

If I am to install Windows onto the Hard drive via a Windows machine, and then install bootcamp drivers onto the Hard drive, Will I be able to boot onto the hard drive on my mac?

I'have same problem and I found this solution. I hope useful...

http://twocanoes.com/winclone/support/migrate-windows-8-to-an-external-drive-using-winclone-4.3-and-later


How do I unlock a .plist file so that I can change it? I want to edit Info.plist for TextEdit. (Here's why.)  I'm running OS 10.7, and I do have Xcode installed.  But every time I try to edit the file, it's locked and I can't save my changes.

If I try to save it with Xcode, Xcode asks if I want to unlock it.  I say "Unlock", but then an error says The file "Info.plist" could not be unlocked."; it says that this is because I do not own it.

If I open Info.plist using vi in Terminal (vi Info.plist), I can't save changes even using :w!.  The error is E212: Can't open file for writing.

How can I make changes to TextEdit's Info.plist file?

Before you do this make sure there are no running instances of TextEdit on your system.

Using The Finder

Select the plist file in the Finder and doing File > Get Info. At the bottom of the file info window you'll see a section called Sharing & Permissions. You want to make sure you're in that list and that you have Read & Write level access to the file.

Before you can add yourself to the access permissions on the file though, you'll need to unlock it. Click the little lock icon (1) in the lower right hand corner and enter your password. If you're not an administrator on the machine, you won't be able to proceed past this step.

Once you've unlocked the file you can change your permissions to Read & Write. If you're not shown in the list of people who can access the file, click the + button below the list and find yourself in the Users & Groups list that pops up.

The changes are applied to the file as soon as you make them in the File Info window.

You should now be able to open, edit and save those edits to the file.

Using The Command Line

Open a Terminal window.

Change to the place where the plist file is located:

cd ~/Library/Preferences/

Change the ownership and permissions on the file so you can read and write it:

sudo chown $USER aomDSP.plist
sudo chmod u+w aomDSP.plist

You probably don't need sudo on the second call there, but it can't hurt. You'll need administrator access to the machine to do this.

The system does not allow for removal or replacement of the .plist
file.


Time Machine ridiculously slow after El Capitan upgrade I recently updated to El Capitan, and told Time Machine to backup. It got stuck on Preparing Backup for hours, so I stopped it, deleted the InProgress file, rebooted and tried again. After ~30 mins, Time Machine was still preparing. I looked into activity monitor and backupd had only read ~140Mb, in 30mins... Looking into iStatMenus, I find that backupd tends to have a read speed between nothing, and 120Kb/s (If I'm lucky. It sometimes peaks up to to 500kb/s, and very rarely 1Mb/s). Spotlight is not indexing (As I heard sometimes Spotlight gets in the way of backupd), and the hard drive has gone to sleep in the time that I wrote this, rarely waking up for my Mac to briefly read something from it.

Here's what comes up in the console when searching for backupd:

I'd rather not have to reformat my hard drive, in case I ever want to downgrade back to Yosemite, however I am willing to if it solves the issue.

Also, it seems like whenever I reboot my Mac, the hard drive loses its Time Machine icon, and reverts back to an orange drive.

Screenshot of Activity Monitor, Disk mode at ~50 min mark:

EDIT: I've tried disabling and reenabling Spotlight for the disk, and I have also wiped the .Spotlight-V100 folder and rebooted. No change.

EDIT 2: What seems to be some errors has appeared in the console

EDIT 3: After many, many hours, Time Machine has finished scanning and is now backing up! I'd still like to know why it took so long (I didn't expect updating to El Capitan to take so long. I excluded system files as well, although I guess I'm in for another long wait since I just removed them from the exceptions list)

Part of the issue is that low priority input/output-operations (I/O) now seems to get throttled heavily. You can check it via Terminal (can be found via Spotlight (usually bound to ⌘Space) and entering terminal) then entering at the bash prompt:

fs_usage backupd

and look for the THROTTLED entries. If you see them, the backup is throttled.

So if you have a ton of files, just the time it takes to do the I/O takes forever, even if the files are small (because it performs a bunch more I/O operations around xattrs etc. than it used to).

Go to a Terminal and enter:

sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=0

For me, this speed it up from 72 hours to ~4 hours on an filesystem with 2.5 million files.

It's also a good idea to re-enable the throttling after your backup finished successfully with the following command

sudo sysctl debug.lowpri_throttle_enabled=1

Please see this note from Apple:

OS X El Capitan: If Time Machine is slow
Try these suggestions if Time Machine is slow.

The first time you use Time Machine, set it up in the evening so that the initial backup can be done overnight.

If your backup disk is a Time Capsule, leave your Mac in the same room as the Time Capsule for the initial backup, or use an Ethernet cable to connect your Mac to one of the Ethernet ports on the Time Capsule.

Virus scanning software can make Time Machine backups very slow. If you use Norton AntiVirus or a similar product, try to exclude your backup disk from automatic scanning. Also make sure you are running the latest version of the virus scanning software.


How to remove deleted app from OS X update list? I'm using a Macbook Pro mid 2010. I have an deleted app always showing in my update list and it's very annoying. Problem has occurred since Mountain Lion, but has since become quite eye-catching after I upgraded to Yosemite, where there's always a 'available updates' badge in the menu.

It's AngryBirds that I want to remove from the app update list. Users can't hide 3rd party updates. So I tried to get rid of it by trashing it from Applications folder (2 years ago maybe). I hope it would disappear in the update list after I trash it. But it still appears in the App Store update list.

I also tried to click the update button of the app, and the window told me 'update unavailable with this Apple Id'. I vaguely remembered that this is an app downloaded long time ago. By then I used a different Apple ID. When I deleted this app I have already changed into a new ID. Is this the possible reason for this app remains in the update list even if i've deleted from my mac?

Update: After trying the suggestions provided by all the answers below, I think there's nothing left in my mac with regard to 'AngryBirds' or 'Rovio'. It could possibly be the push from Apple Server that invokes AngryBirds in the update list. What can I do in this situation?

Right click the item description in the App Store Updates panel & Hide Update

To reset Launchpad and remove that annoying bar under the icon that shows their is an update pending, use the following command:

defaults write com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool true; killall Dock


Open CSV File with Different Separator I'm currently using the default Numbers application to open my CSVs. My current use case involves a file that I had to use a different type of separator (|). Is there any way to change the separator? Right now when I open the file it just puts the entire row in one column.

In Numbers you can use any separator when importing csv tables.

On the format sidebar, in the table tab, look for adjust Import settings. Inside it you have delimited options where you can even use custom delimiters

Numbers >=5.0 after opening a csv-File you get a floating dialog "Table data was imported. Adjust Settings". When hitting "Adjust settings" you can control the delimiters. Found this solution in this tutorial


Finder says I have 20GB free. Why does Bootcamp say I don't have 10GB free? I'm trying to partition my Macbook Air's SSD for dual-boot with Boot Camp (which I've done several times before)... however, it's not seeing 10GB free, yet I have 20.56GB free as per Finder, and Disk Utility sees 10.9GB unused space.

What's going on?  How can I force this to work?  Can I use disk utility and image to an external drive and restore?  Would vastly prefer an easier method of course

You may be just reading the wrong figure in Disk Utility, have a look at the quote below from the apple discussion forums

  Disk Utility will show two different
  "free" readings, depending on where
  you look.

  Sounds odd, but they're for different
  purposes. The larger figure, which the
  Finder and other things will use, is
  the total free space available.

  The second is the amount of free space
  available for a new partition. It's
  shown when you select the top line for
  the drive, click the Partition tab,
  then select a partition, the
  "Available" amount may be smaller.

  This is because partitions, unlike
  folders, must occupy contiguous space
  on a disk. The data on your OSX
  partition is scattered over it, not
  all nicely packed together. That's
  normal, as you add, update, and delete
  files, not every nook and cranny is
  used again immediately.

  But whether there's 7 GB free or 18,
  that probably isn't enough to be
  adding a partition; it's probably too
  little for OSX to operate well.
  There's no "hard and fast" rule, but
  you should always have at least 10 GB
  or 10% of your OSX drive free; many
  folks say 15% or more.

  You could back up your drive (on two
  different HDs, to be safe), reformat
  it to 2 parttions, then restore the
  backup. But it's going to be very
  tight, and you'll likely have
  performance problems because of it.

  Try to delete anything you don't need,
  and/or offload stuff you don't use
  often and delete it.

10.9 is perilously close to the 10GB required. I suggest you arrange things so you have 12GB reported free by Disk Utility and then try again. However, I'd be more concerned abot the reporting discrepancy.

The fact you have Finder reporting a different amount of free space than Disk Utility tells me something is screwed up with your data. They should both report the same. I would think it worthwhile to backup your disk, reformat it and copy your data back, file by file. Better safe than sorry.


How do I set permissions on a directory so that all files created there will be read/write/execute for everyone? I have a cache directory in which several different programs owned by several different accounts create/read/write/delete etc new files and directories. I want everyone to have all the possible rights to all of these things in this directory and everything that is ever created in it in the future.

How do I do this?

Right click the directory or Command + I after clicking on it, there will pop up a window like this.

Clink on the padlock in lower right corner and type your password. Now you can change permissions for this directory. If you want everyone to be able to read and write, click on the privilege provided to Everyone and there will appear a dropdown menu from which you can choose what permission to provide.

I hope that helped.

I want everyone to have all the possible rights to all of these things in this directory and everything that is ever created in it in the future.

No, you really, really don't want to do that. You are solving one problem and creating many more.

What you want is for each user/process to be able to read/write/delete their own files but not break other things. Fortunately you are not the first person to come across this issue and there are two perfect solutions:

use /var/tmp as the cache directory, as it does this already
set the sticky bit on your own cache folder: chmod 1777 my/tmp/

gets a bit more complicated if it's a network share, but OS X server has access control lists to help.


Using FaceTime without the video I have a first generation MacBook Air that heats up a lot when playing videos, and almost grinds to a halt after a few minutes of playback.

Is there a way I could turn off the video during FaceTime calls so that the audio could continue smoothly?

Yes — if you simply minimize the FaceTime window (⌘ Command+M) or hide FaceTime (⌘ Command+H), video will pause while audio still functions as usual.

(Similarly, on iOS, pressing the home button will pause video and allow you to use other applications while audio still works.)

Depending on if you were planning to use your Mac for other purposes during the call, you can always just dim your screen all the way off. That's what I do while I'm out the country!


No internet even when connected to the WiFi or 4G (iPhone) I have been having an Internet-related problem on my iPhone 5S for a while now.

It started out with seemingly random Internet disconnection even when there is a perfectly good cellular (4G) or WiFi signal shown on my device. For instance, no emails or messages (like Whatsapp or iMessage) are being pushed to my device, or when I try to search something on the mobile browser, it shows that there is no Internet.

One thing I noticed is that when I do a search on a mobile browser, it seems to load for a long time (more than 10 seconds), only to return a 'No Internet' message.

The only resolve to this matter is to restart my device. I would get connected to Internet with no problems whatsoever (until I encounter the problem again).

I tried doing a reset of network settings, and also a reset of the entire settings. I even went on to do a restore as new (without restoring from a backup). This did not eradicate the problem.

I have already had several appointments at the Apple Genius Bar because of this problem. They didn't seem to know the cause of the problem, nor to resolve it; I got the device exchanged in the end. However the new device I obtained started having this problem as well.

Maybe this is another bug that iOS 8 has? I never had this problem before updating to iOS 8.

Thank you for reading and I hope that somebody has an answer to my problem.

The 1st thing to do when you are facing a network misbehaviour is to deal with one way of connection at a time.
This is what the genius at the bar should have told you first.

Practically focus on your mobile Internet conectivity first:

turn off Bluetooth;
turn off Wi-Fi.

Test your mobile Internet connectivity in different places.

Then conclude: your problem is on the mobile network side or not.

If your mobile phone network is OK

then analyse your Wi-Fi in the same way:

turn off Bluetooth;
turn off mobile phone network (Mobile Data).

Test your Wi-Fi connectivity in different places.

Then conclude: your problem is on the Wi-Fi network side or not.

Hey just delete vpn and hopefully all will work :) its not a bug its a vpn issues


MacBook not recognizing Wireless N USB Adapter I have an aluminum unibody (2008). I recently upgraded RAM & downloaded all software to get my baby up to date. THEN the wifi card died. I tried to fix that myself but thanks to Apple's almost spot-welded screws, I had to change directions. I got the usb adapter's drivers installed & when I inserted the adapter, I got nothing. NOTHING. Can someone please help this old lady? I just paid $35 to the local computer guy to remove a stripped screw. I'm trying really hard to not have to see him ever again. All I want is to use my MacBook again & throw this PC back in the corner.

HELP!!

It might be an alteration in the USB ports. Try checking them out first.


How to get folder path in Automator Folder Action? How do I get a path (or a name) of the folder an Automator Folder Action is attached to and save it into a variable?
My folder action is attached to Downloads, I copy newly dropped files into a temporary folder, process them and want to move them back into Downloads. I don't want to use hardcoded value with Move Finder Items as the folder action may be attached to different folders. Instead, I need folder action to be smart enough to move items back to the folder it is attached to.

I don't think you can get the folder an action is attached to, but I think a good analog would be to get the parent folder of the current file. So, the parent folder of a file in ~/Downloads/MyDownloadedFile.pdf will be the Downloads folder, and you could save that to a variable.
This action is not built in to Automator. However, if you are running macOS 10.13 or earlier, you can purchase a package of third-party Automator Actions from http://automatedwork.server323.com/products/apps/automator-actions-for-mac-os-x-10-610-7-snow-leopard-lion/. The action you want is "Get Parent Folders of Finder Items" in the "File and Folder Automator Action Pack". At the time that I bought it (a few months ago), the developer charged $20.

(You may also be able to accomplish this without third party actions by using an Applescript block—something like tell application "Finder" to return container of (input as alias). However, when I tried this myself, Automator seemed unable to save the variable properly. I'm not sure if that's due to a limitation of Automator or a problem with my Applescript.)


What must I enter into Terminal, using sudo to make myself an administrator? My user account is a standard account on my Mac. What must I enter into Terminal using sudo, to make myself the administrator?

If the actual user < user_name > has a standard account, you would have to enter

sudo dscl . -append /Groups/admin GroupMembership <user_name>

to make < user_name > an admin.

Only a restricted number of users are sudoers (i.e. accounts which are allowed to run su or sudo with root privileges successfully) though. The standard sudoers file (/etc/sudoers) in OS X looks like this:

...
# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
%admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Uncomment to allow people in group wheel to run all commands
# %wheel    ALL=(ALL) ALL
...

So only root and members of the admin group are allowed to run sudo by default. The above command run by < user_name > will fail consequently, because  < user_name > isn't in the list.

To enable sudoing for < user_name >, you would have to add < user_name > to the list (below # User privilege specification) or uncomment the %wheel line with sudo visudo which has to be run by sudoers again (that's the Catch22 mentioned by Tetsujin).

If you have access to an administrator account, you can become that account temporarily with:

su - <admin_username>

From there you can perform administrative actions via sudo.

If you do not have access to an administrator account, then there is no "sanctioned" way of getting admin access (since that's the whole point to having separate admin roles), but there are plenty of less-than-legitimate ways of attaining it, such as privilege escalation exploits or booting into single-user mode. (These will be left as an exercise to the reader.)


OS X Server 3.0 (Mavericks) Wiki / WebSites / Xcode I have a domain name registered called mydomain.com. I have a static IP address from my ISP. I set the dns information on GoDaddy for my domain as follows to point to my ISP:

mydomain.com A record 65.0.0.1
vpn.mydomain.com A record 65.0.0.1
www.mydomain.com CNAME mydomain.com (Not sure if this is needed)

At home, I have an AirPort Extreme with VPN and Mail opened up to pass through (port forwarding) to my Mac Mini running Server 3. My Mac Mini host name is server.mydomain.com.

I have DNS, File Sharing, Open Directory, Profile Manager, VPN, Wiki, Websites, Mail, and Xcode services running on the server.

On my Mac Mini Server I enabled Xcode and Wiki and disabled Websites, I open Safari, and if I go to mydomain.com I can see the Xcode page and if I click the Wiki link, it takes me to mydomain.com/wiki. However, if I enable Websites, neither the Xcode or wiki pages work anymore.

How can I set it up so that going to mydomain.com points to Websites folder. Going to mydomain.com/wiki OR if I can't have that, I wouldn't mind wiki.mydomain.com instead to display the wiki page. Same with Xcode (i.e. Xcode.mydomain.com)?

Note: I didn't port forward Xcode, wiki, or websites in the Airport Extreme because I want it only accessible when connected over VPN.

Edit: I can get Websites and Wiki to work together, but turning on Xcode changes the way mydomain.com is accessed. Xcode should be accessed by going to domain.com/xcode however domain.com still shows the same output as /xcode. If I turn Xcode off domain.com/ takes me to my html page and domain.com/wiki shows me the wiki page.

Thanks!

Resolution:

Remove /xcode and /wiki from Websites -> Server Website -> Index Files


How to add permanent environment variable in zsh I have been scouring the internet, and cannot seem to find a solution to permanently adding an environment variable, specifically when my OS is macOS Mojave (10.14).  It seems there are a lot of tutorials for past versions of the OS, but none for this one one.  It also seems every old method has become outdated.

I want to add an environment variable ENV_VAR=12345 to my Mac, so that I can import it into a Python module using os.environ['ENV_VAR']

The most relevant tutorial I have found is this, but it doesn't quite do the trick for me. A lot of others tell you how to temporarily add environment variables to bash, but I don't think this is good enough.  I want the addition to be there if you restart terminal.

Can you please either provide a short tutorial or point me to the correct/modern tutorial?

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that I use zsh.  This was key.

Bash

Since Bash is typically the default shell you can open up this file in your home directory:

$ vim ~/.bash_profile

And add your variable to this file:

export ENV_VAR=12345

You can do this without even having to edit this file if you like, using the following one-liner:

$ echo 'export ENV_VAR=12345' >> ~/.bash_profile

And then confirm like so:

$ cat ~/.bash_profile
for i in ~/.bash_profile.d/[0-9]*; do
  . "$i"
done
export ENV_VAR=12345

After doing the above, if you open a new terminal you should see that environment variable has been set:

$ echo $ENV_VAR
12345

Zsh

If you find that you're using an alternative shell such as zsh, that uses a different set of configuration files maintained within your home directory, ~. Luckily the syntax of the changes is basically the same, just different files. So you can add the above example to this file instead:

$ echo 'export ENV_VAR=12345' >> ~/.zshenv

And then when you launch a zsh:

$ echo $ENV_VAR
12345

References

Zsh Startup Files

UPDATE: read the comments to @slm's answer.  I should have been editing ~/.zshrc not ~/.bash_profile, because I use zsh.  The more you know!  The below answer also seemed to work, but hacky.

Thanks to @Tim Campbell and @slm, I was able to get something working.

Background

echo $0 outputs -zsh

echo $SHELL outputs /bin/zsh

echo $PATH outputs /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin

My "Hacky" Solution

I made a shell script configure_env.sh and put in in ~/Documents

#!/bin/zsh
export ENV_VAR=12345

I then ran chmod +x ~/Documents/configure_env.sh

I then did nano ~/.bash_profile and appended source ~/Documents/configure_env.sh

Then, when I typed echo $ENV_VAR, it returned 12345

:) thank you again to Stack Overflow!


How can I send message as Text Message on purpose? I have noticed that iMessages usually fail when outside a reliable data network area. Only after iOS attempts to deliver the message and fails does it offer to send it as a text message. Often the failure takes some time, and is not brought to my attention immediately. When circumstances are such that I reasonably suspect that iMessage will fail, I would like to skip the failure and send an SMS immediately.

How can I opt to send an SMS message instead of an iMessage without first attempting to send an iMessage?

There is currently no way to switch to Text Message by default when iMessage you know is going to fail.

1) When you know that your iMessage is not gonna go then try this:

Type iMessage and send it. It will get stuck with Top bar showing "Sending..."
Long press the iMessage text that is not going.
A menu will appear where you can choose "Send as text message"

2) Now if you want to send Text Message intentionally by passing iMessage (consider scenario when you know recipient is not on cellular data or wifi) you can do the following:
- Disable your Wifi
- Disable Cellular data ( Go to Settings -> Select "Cellular" -> disable "Cellular Data"
- Type iMessage and send it. It will get stuck with Top bar showing "Sending..."
- Long press the iMessage text that is not going.
- A menu will appear where you can choose "Send as text message"

Hope that helps!

Screenshots attached:Updating after fsb's comment below. "Send as text message" is not disabled in iOS 10.2.1 (latest as of 02/21/2017)


How to configure Finder to let me rename dotfiles? I always have hidden files set to 'visible' in Finder, because I'm a developer and I work with a lot of dotfiles.

But even with this setting, Finder won't let me rename a file beginning with a dot. It also won't let me modify these files by pasting over them etc; it gives an error like "The item “.gitignore” can’t be replaced because it’s invisible." Well, it's not invisible, I can see it, and I want to replace it, and it's mine.

I know how to use mv. I am asking about doing this with Finder.

I do not know what version of OS X you're using however I have no problem renaming dotfiles in Finder under OS X 10.8.5. That said, If your using a version of OS X that will not allow you to rename dotfiles in Finder and you do not want to use Terminal and the mv command, then a GUI option you can consider using is muCommander.

You could make an Automator service with a hotkey that pops up and asks for a new name

EDIT:

I did the work for you.

Add it to ~/Library/Services and define a hotkey in System Preferences.


How does "Find my Mac" work, since there's no GPS in a Mac? I have used "Find my Mac" to find our Macbook Pro. It was pretty accurate and was able to place the computer within 10 feet of its actual location. I started thinking about how it actually works, since the MBP doesn't have a GPS. How does "Find my Mac" work?

It checks what Wifi networks are in range and then looks up their locations in a big database of known Wifi access points -- I think Apple use the Skyhook database.

SIMPLE ANSWER:
mac laptops don't have a GPS chip. They can be located through wifi networks.


osascript -e "tell application \"Terminal\" to set normal text color of window 1 to ${color}"
osascript -e "tell application \"Terminal\" to set background color of window 1 to ${color}"
osascript -e "tell application \"Terminal\" to set the font name of window 1 to \"$1\""
osascript -e "tell application \"Terminal\" to set the font size of window 1 to $2"

http://www.ict4g.net/adolfo/notes/2014/07/16/change-osx-terminal-settings-from-command-line.html

Not sure if you figured this out but you can create new profiles and add the font size there. Then choose that new profile to be the one that terminal used when it starts up.


Code to Flowchart-Program for Mac OS? I'm searching an alternative Program which can draw Flowcharts for pieces of sourcecode. I found Programs like "C/Delphi/Basic Code 2 Flowchart" or "Visustin" but they're only for Windows.

Helpful and lazy as it is - I'm searching for a program that turns C++ code into Flowcharts to have a better overview what my program does.

Python Call Graph, a Python module that creates call graph visualizations for Python applications.
https://github.com/gak/pycallgraph

code2flow, turn your Python and Javascript code into DOT flowcharts
https://github.com/scottrogowski/code2flow

OmniGraffle is the Gold Standard for flow charts!

Strom looks useable:
http://flowproject.economy-x-talk.com/file.php?node=download

But I don't think their is one specifically for adding a flowchart to source code other than OmniGraffle and you will need teh PRO version!

Depending on what code you are developing Xcode Core Data does have some tools to help you visualise the data flow.. Not sure if that is really teh same thing.


If I sign a JAR with a certificate from Comodo, will I still get warnings? I have written a piece of software in Java that I would like to sell, however it is currently unsigned. When I first wrote the software it didn't matter too much, but I think OS X has upgraded since then and has gotten more strict as have web browsers and I'm now getting lots of warnings to say the file "is not commonly downloaded and may be dangerous" and OS X will not allow the app to run without changing security settings.

From what I can gather the only way to address this is to sign the application, which is fine for Windows however on OS X I'm a bit confused. I've read online that now only certificates issued by Apple are valid, but some companies like DigiCert are still advertising that there code signing certificates work on Mac and pretty much all say that they work with Java. So, if I signed my JAR files with a code signing certificate from Comodo and then used JarBundler to create an app, would it be recognized as 'safe'?

After biting the bullet and purchasing a code signing certificate, I can now answer my own question with all certainty:

Short answer: No, the warnings don't go on OS X - although they do in web browsers.

Long(er) answer: Technically certificates from Comodo or any other certificate authority that is trusted do work on Mac and you can absolutely sign .apps with them, however how useful this is another matter. I suppose that for more advanced users it is still beneficial in that you can verify whether or not an application has been tampered with, but Apple still won't see it as being from a trusted developer - and that's where the confusion starts.

The warnings that I mentioned in my original question originate from Gatekeeper. Now, if I would have known that I wouldn't have needed to start this question but I guess if I didn't know other people won't either. Anyway Gatekeeper is something that Apple have designed to keep Mac's safe and to avoid unwanted, malicious software from entering the system. It does this by restricting what apps can be executed based upon their origin, and by default in OS X Mountain Lion and later Gatekeeper only allows the execution of Apps from the Mac App Store and trusted developers.

To become a trusted developer however, it takes more than just signing code with any old certificate. Trusted developers have Developer ID's, given to them by Apple, and their code signing certificate contains this Developer ID; again the only certificates to be able to hold a Developer ID are those issued by Apple.

So, when people tell you that Apple only trust themselves, that's not true. They trust certificates issued by most certificate authorities just not in the same way as Windows and signing you app does not mean you're a trusted developer. For that, you have to pay Apple $99/year.

In all fairness, you do get a lot for that $99 and it does make some sense for it to be this way. It's frustrating for developers, but  safer for users! Users can bypass Gatekeeper for individual apps, so if you're only planning on releasing one app for OS X or something then perhaps providing instructions on how to this might be a better option for you.

PS: After a lot of emails to the Comodo support team, I finally received this statement from them to confirm all of this:

  While our certificates work perfectly fine with signing .app files, it
  does not give you an Apple Developer ID to designate that you are an
  Identified Developer by Apple, as only Apple provides developer IDs
  for Mac and iOS applications.

Your JAR files will be considered as Safe once you sign it using Comodo Code Signing Certificate.

Comodo Code Signing Certificate is compatible with Mac OS, Linux, Windows, so you will not get any warning or alert message in your OS X.

This article will help you to understand how Comodo Code Signing certificate secure .Jar files - https://support.comodo.com/index.php?/Default/Knowledgebase/Article/View/531/7/signing-jar-files


How to Open the Profile Management Window Every Time You Open Chrome? Chrome allows multiple people to use Chrome on the same computer, with each profile having its own custom bookmarks, settings, and accounts. By default, Chrome opens to the profile used the last time the browser was opened,That's not really helpful for client work.

I do not want that to happen. I want to see this screen whenever I launch Chrome

It's easy to do in Windows and Linux

How do I do it on my Mac?

Thanks User3439894 for guidance

The Command

open -a "Google Chrome" --args --profile-directory="Guest Profile"

Does work when Chrome has been Quit but I needed a command which could do the same thing in running session

open -na "Google Chrome" --args --profile-directory="Guest Profile"

the '-na' prefix opens a new session of the browser and that helps my case.

I've read your duplicated question and wanted to suggest this native mac method.

And I think you could use your simple command with AppleScript Editor like this

do shell script " open -na '/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app' --args --profile-directory='Guest Profile' "

then save/export it with File Format Application.

Not quite sure thought, I made something like this for Firefox by following a similar question here in AskDifferent.


May I delete cache and application support for Xcode? I'm using App cleaner I downloaded Appcleaner from App store and want to clean up to get some more space.

I have two versions of Xcode; 7.3 and 8.0. So there's no problem with two executable files but I'm wondering what that 'Application support' files are for. The bigger one takes up almost 19 gigabytes..

May i delete that one?

Cache: Sure. Haven't noticed anything bad. (You can do this yourself, as well – just trash everything in ~/Library/Caches.)
Application Support: Do not do this without knowing what's in there! Apps often use this to store configuration – for example:

Xcode puts color themes and key bindings there.
The Dock puts your spaces configuration there.
GIMP uses it to hold all sorts of things like gradients and palette images.
Steam uses it to store your entire game library. (If it's taking up way too much space, try uninstalling some games.) Not sure if progress is there too, but it seems likely.

Deleting Application Support won't break the app (it'll just create it again the next time it starts), but you might lose configuration and other data, like key bindings for Xcode. You also might want to make sure the app is closed before you take its folders out from under it. (:

I am using AppCleaner and I searched for this question specifically because I downloaded Xcode 9 with 8.3 still installed on my mac.
Long story short; you can safely delete Application Support if you do not have any issue with losing any or all configurations previously set on the app. I did it for a bunch of apps like Spotify to free up space and as far as I can tell everything works smoothly.