Which cable should I choose to do data transfer between a 12" MacBook and a 2017 MacBook Pro via target disk mode by Migration Assistant? This is a quick image showing my cables and MacBooks.

I got a new MacBook Pro 13" with Touch Bar (A1706) and now I need to transfer all my data from my old 12" MacBook (A1534) to it. While Migration Assistant always generates errors over Wi-Fi, I see target disk mode could do the work.

From this official article by Apple it says:

  Target disk mode on MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports

  You can use target disk mode to transfer data between MacBook Pro
  models with Thunderbolt 3 and other Mac computers.

  To use target disk mode between a MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt 3 and
  another Mac notebook's USB-C port, connect the two computers with a
  USB-C cable such as the Belkin 3.1 USB-C to USB-C Cable.

So I got this Belkin 3.1 cable. However, when I restart the 12" MacBook into target disk mode and connect it to my 13" MacBook Pro when Migration Assistant is searching for the source, nothing happens.

Before this I actually accidentally got a Thunderbolt 3 cable to try, and nothing happened either.

So even the official post is not telling the right thing? Or where did I get it wrong? Which cable should I get to complete the job? I'm so confused right now.

After different kinds of attempts, I finally got it work by some sort of magic.

Short answer: USBC 3.1 cable does work, but you have to first leave two MacBooks unconnected, and turn on each other separately. Leave the 12” MacBook stay there for several minutes, with or without power supply, then use the cable to connect. Wait about 5 minutes, the disk will show on desktop or in disk-utility app.

Here’s how I found it working if you are interested:

Although initially I could hear the charging sound from my old 12” MacBook when connecting it to my new MacBook Pro when 12” is on target disk mode, the disk never showed up on migration assistant, desktop or disk utility, for however long time I wait. Then I was thinking if the cable was the right cable, and that brought me to my original question. To troubleshoot the cable, I came up with another idea: I put the new MacBook Pro in target disk mode this time, and connected it my 12” MacBook, see if 12 inch can recognize the new cable. The reason I did this is because in my opinion, the new MacBook definitely can use this 3.1 cable, since it’s thunderbolt 3 port so it shoudn’t have downwards capability issue, but I am not sure if the USBC port on 12” could since it is still a USBC gen1 port and this cable is gen2.

To my surprise, about 2 minutes later the disk from my new MacBook showed up on my 12”, and I did a little file transfer successfully. So the cable is good, and there’s no reason it can’t be used reversely. I begin to make different attempts, by reversing the cable(although I know this shouldn’t be an issue for usb-c), and by booting each MacBook in different orders with cable connected or without.

Finally, it led me to the result I described in my short answer. And I tried 3 more time, all work. Booting with the cable already attached will not give you any result, at least in my case. I waited the whole night long and I still didn’t see it was mounted when I woke up this morning. So if are you experiencing this issue, definitely try booting the computers separately without cable connected, and then connect it. And most importantly, you may have to wait(plus, I actually found this method by accident as well. After so many failures I was calling an apple care representative for help, and she put me on hold to find the infomrmstion on whether this cable would work or not. While waiting for her reply about 5 minutes later, the disk showed up! So I recalled what I did, and that is in my short answer) for several minutes. I don’t know the reason, and this could be very tricky as you may think this would fail again. But be patient and follow the steps and you will be good!

Edit: I’m still keeping the thunderbolt 3 cable however, and I will try that with some updates later. I’m doing the migration now. Finger crossed!

You don't use migration assistant in Target disc mode. U simple look for the old mac, same as connecting an external HDD. When you connect you will be prompted for the password that you use to login to the old computer and walla you now have access to your old files which you can transfer to your new computer. Using a USBC to THUNDERBOLT 2 (Mini DP) cable is the fastest method of data transfer.


How can I use a secondary axis in Numbers? One of my main problems with Numbers is the fact that it has much less of the functionality of Excel. That's why I barely use Numbers.

One of the main things that I always thought impossible was plotting two axes on one graph. This is my main reason for my dislike of Numbers.

Now that many other interesting questions that I didn't think had answers are getting answered, I thought I might ask this question:

How can I plot two lines on one graph using a secondary axis in Numbers?

If you want a line graph with 2 y-axes. You to insert->Chart-> 2-Axis. Put in your data. One of the sets will be a line the others a bar. The way to fix that is: Select the one that is a bar then to go to the Inspector-> Chart-> Series. It will say series type-> select that and change it from bar to line. Right below that it says plot on: There you can determine if you want that line to be plotted on y(1) or y(2).

Was able to do the same thing in Numbers 2009 (v2.1), but had to fiddle a lot.
Use the 2-axis format. The program resists you all the way.

Here is a 2-axis graph (climate diagram) created using Numbers 2.1:


How to fix my MacBook Pro that goes straight into sleep/hibernate? I have a MacBook Pro (mid-2009) that I just installed Mountain Lion on. After the install everything appeared ok, but a day later it goes straight into sleep/hibernate whenever I turn it on.

This happens even when I press Command+R during startup - before it gets to the menu screen it hibernates.

What can I try to fix this?

Before doing an SMC Reset as suggested by @Thecafremo, I decided to clear the PRAM/NVRAM (because the SMC Reset page says: "an SMC reset should only be attempted after all other standard troubleshooting has been performed")

This seems to have been enough to bring the MacBook back to life at least for the moment.

Clearing the PRAM/NVRAM is achieved by holding down Command+Option+P+R during boot before the gray screen appears and letting the startup go thru three chimes before releasing the keys.

Found the lid sensor had gone faulty on one I was fixing. (Booted Ubuntu, turned off 'sleep when lid closed'.


Apple mail unable to reply or close windows Whenever I try to reply (or reply all) to any email through the mail app, an empty new message window opens that I can type in but all the buttons (send, attach etc.) are greyed out and I cannot close the window without restarting the mail app. Has made the app complete unusable except for reading emails. Any ideas how to fix this?

In my case the following approach has fixed this issue, for the time being at least:

(Using Mail.app version 9.2)

Go to Mail > Preferences and select the 'Composing' tab. In the section of preferences relating to 'Responding' and change the settings so that they are the opposite of what you normally use. Save the changes.

I then quit Mail. (In my case I then restarted the machine as well - for a wholly separate and unrelated reason, but I don't know if that's a critical step or not, certainly won't do any harm.) Re-launch mail, and I found that replying to a message now conforms to the new preferences that I've set.

I then re-edited the preferences to set them back to what I wanted. Tried a new reply, and it works - the target addresses are in place, the text of the original is there and quoted.

I guess the issue may have been due to the original preference settings getting corrupted in some way. I'll keep it under review, and if it stops working again anytime soon, I'll aim to add a comment here.

The workaround that I have found is to restart and can send replies as normal but the problem will return back soon after.


How do I enable key repeat on iOS? I am working on a project in iOS and would like to enable key repeat. I have done quite a bit of looking around and have failed to come up with any option like that (which surprises me quite a bit, actually).

Is there a way to enable key repeat on an iOS device?

The other answers here are inaccurate. The correct answer is "sort of"

@MichaelGoerz Comment is correct. There seems to be a bug in iOS where key repeat only works for certain keys instead of all keys as expected. For example backspace will repeat per your settings but "w" won't. I recommend filing a bug report with Apple at https://bugreport.apple.com in an effort to prod them to fix this. This bug is highly irritating especially when using remote desktop tools where holding down a key might be required.

I occurred to me that this may also be by design, an attempt by Apple to be "helpful" by only allowing the most commonly used repeating keys. Due to the fact that the Settings->General->Accessibility->Keyboard->Key Repeat menu makes no mention of this I am treating it as a bug.

I wanted to create a single line across the page On iPad. I went to Settings->General->Accessibility->Keyboard->Text Replacement.  There you can add a keyboard shortcut for complete phrase. I created a shortcut consisting of a double tap of the underscore key to create a complete line of underscore keystrokes.


Safari open new tabs to the far right (end) How can I make Safari open new tabs to the far right (end) and not immediately to the right of my existing tab which is the current behaviour?

This never got answered, but a question was posed. I'm thinking about clicking on a link and having it open in a new tab at the far right of any existing tabs. There used to be an extension called OpenAtEnd that no longer works with newer versions of Safari.


How do I install Flash in the guest account only? Is there a way to install Adobe Flash to the Guest account (only)?  I'd like to install to the Guest account so it gets wiped out on reboot.  I rarely use Flash, so I want to not have to track updates.

Either that, can I install it to a non-Admin account that I can wipe out when I need to.

Yes, Google Chrome has a sandboxed built-in version of Flash.

Download Chrome.
Navigate to: Macintosh HD> Users> Guests
Right Click and select "New Folder" and change its name to Applications
Open the Google Chrome disk image and drag Chrome.app to this folder

Google Chrome and its Flash player will only be accessible to the Guest user.

Mabe this will do the trick ?
First of all you may need to unhide the hiden files so open terminal and run those commands :

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

To switch back, do the same but substitute FALSE for TRUE.

Now
Login to your guest account, there set chrome as your default browser (or even Firefox)
Then do not logout ! This would erase your session, so use the  on the top right corner use the swich user drop down menue,
Now that you are back again in your Admin account,
Find the new temporary guest home folder, under

 Users/Guest

Select all the folders inside of it,
And copy them in :

 /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/

English or whatever your languish is if you are using your computer in french this should be :

  /System/Library/User Template/French.lproj/

as you can see in this folder there was the defaults folders for the guest account
By modifying them you have just modified default appearance of the guest user account
You may want to save this folder in a safe place before, in case you want to undo your work.

For reference ,
You just have to follow the steps as shown in this video :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU-W2-_c5bA

Or if you prefer text version :

http://www.michaelsmac.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=394


Different transparency for in-call menu I'm using ios7.1 and I was wondering if there's a way to change the transparency of the in-call menu?
When I use the dialer's keypad I have about 30% transparency (I can see the background but it's mostly covered in white), but when I'm in the middle of a call, the background is about 70-80% transparent, so if I have a light wallpaper, I can't see the menu or the numbers.

I'm looking for a tweak that will enable me to manually change the transparency or tweak it from iFile.
Second option: set a dark wallpaper only for in-call menu (is it possible?)

Thank you!

No, this is impossible using official iOS builds. This has never been possible in the past, and probably never will be a user-editable option on iOS. If your iPhone is jail-broken (which is implied by mentioning iFile) there might be a way to do this, but I'm not familiar with that.


How to stop using iCloud Music Library on Mac and iOS? While trying Apple Music this summer, I must have switched on the iCloud Music Library functions. I finished using Apple Music, and I would like to get rid of that iCloud Music Library.

I'd like to return to...

having my music on my Mac
syncing selected playlists, albums and artists to my iOS devices
NOT having my music on iCloud at all

I am on OS X 10.11.1 and iTunes 12.3.1 on the Mac and iOS 9.2 on my iPhone and iPad.

How can I accomplish this?

Update:
of course, I have googled this, resulting either in

partial (iOS only),
outdated (iTunes 12.x seems to have had a switch in Preferences that 12.3. doesn't have) or
immensely unattractive (restore iTunes Library from TimeMachine - I would have to go back to June, it is November now...)

solutions.

On my iPhone, I was able to have it show only music that is stored locally on my iPhone.

On my Mac in iTunes, it tells me to log into iCloud regularly. Often, I see duplicate entries in my playlists. When I rip a CD, it will get uploaded to iCloud. Sometimes, I cannot see my music library but the spinning circle with the message "connecting to iCloud".

I don't like this at all, and frankly, I'm quite upset about Apple's policy...

I had the same problem. I searched and found a few articles and threads that dealt with similar issues. It looks like the option to turn off iCloud Music Library for both the iPhone and Mac has been hidden in iTunes >> Preferences >> General. Uncheck the box next to "Show Apple Music". After unchecking the box you are given a message about iCloud Music Library. Next, you will want to reset your iCloud Music Library settings in iTunes. Go to Store >> View Account, enter your Apple ID and Password, then click "View Account". Once the Account Information page loads, scroll to the bottom and click the "Reset" button for the option to reset iCloud Music Library. You will be asked to delete all of the music and libraries stored in iCloud Music Library. Check "I Understand", and click "Reset". After you confirm and click "Reset Now", quit iTunes. Links to the full articles:

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT204964
How to prevent iTunes 12.2 from automatically uploading sound tracks to iCloud Music Library?

Now, verify that the settings are correct on your iPhone. Go to Settings >> Music. Under Apple Music, slide OFF "Show Apple Music". Finally, Power off your iPhone for 30 seconds and then power back on. If the music library on your iPhone still contains music from iCloud, tap the Music app, tap Library at the top, tap the red text (will read either: Artists, Albums, Songs, Music Videos, Genres, Composers, or Compilations), then slide ON "Only Offline Music".

Following these steps should provide the results you are trying to obtain. It deletes any music and libraries from iCloud but leaves your original library in tact, allowing you to continue syncing selected playlist, albums, and artists to your iOS devices.

iTunes 12.3:  View >> Hide iCloud Music Purchases


Is there an OSX app/way to batch rename files via a purely text interface? Many years ago - when I was a Windows user - I had an application which made renaming files an amazingly simple experience. You would select the files you wish to work with, and their filenames would appear within what was essentially a huge textarea. Imagine a text editor (such as TextEdit, Sublime Text, etc.) open to a document that simply lists all filenames, with each filename on a new line.

With the files in this interface, you had your "standard" find/replace tools (CMD+F), as well as the ability to use REGEX. You could use the keyboard's arrows to move around the filenames without extra clicks or bulky interfaces. Modified filenames were highlighted with a different background and applying changes to all files was a simple CMD+S.

Does something like this exist for OSX?

// edit - to clarify: I'm aware of OSX's built-in bulk file renaming options in Finder, and software along the likes of NameChanger, Renamer, Automator, ABetterFinderRename, etc. I'm specifically looking for software with the kind of UI I described.

// edit 2 - the original Windows software is called Oscar's Renamer: http://www.mediachance.com/free/renamer.htm

Emacs can do this.

Open Emacs
C-x C-f and open the directory. It will open in dired-mode.
M-x wdired-change-to-wdired-mode RET

You can now edit the filenames just as you asked.  Pressing C-c C-c will end wdired-mode and perform the modifications.

  wdired-change-to-wdired-mode is an interactive autoloaded Lisp
  function in `wdired.el'.

  It is bound to   .

  (wdired-change-to-wdired-mode)

  Put a Dired buffer in Writable Dired (WDired) mode.

  In WDired mode, you can edit the names of the files in the buffer, the
  target of the links, and the permission bits of the files.  After
  typing C-c C-c, Emacs modifies the files and directories to reflect
  your edits.

  See `wdired-mode'.

There is already a very good "service" tool called "A Better Finder Rename" now at V9 and working perfectly in Yosemite.
http://www.publicspace.net/ABetterFinderRename/
I test/use it already since Leopard.


transferring data to new Macbook Pro I just got a new Macbook Pro, and even though I have been using Time Machine and I could use the Migration Assistant, I've accumulated so many files throughout the years that I thought it would be great to start fresh and transfer only what I think is important. Of course transferring my personal files is straightforward, as well with Notes, Calendars, Contacts, Reminders, Safari, KeyChain, etc. where iCloud makes it really easy. But then there are is the data of some applications that it's very hard:

Messages (I can't seem to get it right, and I've seen this post)
Stickies
Photos
iTunes
etc.?

this article should be useful to you

http://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/setting-up-a-new-mac-should-you-migrate-or-do-a-clean-installation/


Using `say` to create my own audiobooks I like the idea of being able to select a bunch of text and have it saved as an audio file and/or simply read back to me using OS X's default say functionality. It's almost like I can create my own instant personal audiobooks anytime I like. The problem is; the default voices, and more specifically, the robotic speech patterns, can get become quite unbearable to listen to. Is there a solution or an alternative available to overcome this problem? Thanks in advance.

Optional Voices in OS X

OS X includes support for numerous languages, take a look at the Other Languages section of Speaking with a French accent – OS X say. The optional voices include alternative English speakers:

  To discover the full list of voices and associated languages:

  Open System Preferences.app
  Select Dictation & Speech
  Select System Voice > Customize…

Customising Synthesised Speech

Apple's development documentation includes Techniques for Customizing Synthesized Speech. This is a technical document aimed at developers but it includes a section on Use Embedded Speech Commands to Fine-Tune Spoken Output that offers a way to embed additional statements within your text that influence the synthesised voice.

Cepstral: Buy Professional Voices

You can also purchase additional voices for use with OS X. Voices are available from Cepstral:

  CereVoice text-to-speech is available for Apple Mac OS X, bringing CereProc's high-quality voices to computers running Apple's OS X: 10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard, 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion, 10.9 Mavericks, 10.10 Yosemite and 10.11 El Capitan (Intel Macs only). CereVoice can replace the default Mac voices with a wide range of other accents and languages.

Read Me a Book
Tell Me A Story
TextSpeech Pro for Mac OS X

And you can write own program:

Use speak
Use own voice, but so hard because need voice for all words and need some tones :)


Put the display to sleep without putting the whole computer to sleep? I like to use vnc on my ipad on my bed. I want the mac to go to a black screen so I can fall asleep while using the ipad, and not have to get up to shut down the mac afterwards. Is there anyway to turn off the imac screen without sleeping?

I'm open to anything that minimizes the light - so if the backlight is off, that would meet the needs even if the screen is still drawing content.

From a semantics standpoint, let's assume the following:

When the system sleeps, the display sleeps or a screensaver engages are all distinct states. The display is asleep when the backlight is off and the GPU doesn't bother drawing any signal to that display but continues to run. This is different than system sleep where everything except the RAM and network interfaces1 are shut off.

1: Network interfaces that support wake on lan (WOL) only do so when power not from a battery is available.

You can turn off your iMac (and your macbook) screen without sleeping via the following keyboard shortcut:

 ⌃  +  ⇧  +  ⏏

(Control +SHIFT + EJECT)

Machines like the Air and newer MacBook Pro with no optical drives have the power button in the same place as the eject key and it works similarly for display sleeping shortcuts.

schedule you can set any time you want .I watch tv set it 1/2 hour in the future it works well


Yahoo Search has hijacked all my internet browsers (Safari, Firefox). How to remove the adware/malware? Today I installed a program that I'm familiar with and that I have used before called Filezilla using SourceForge. I've never had a problem with it before, and I only uninstalled it because I had no need for it. So I moved to install it again and thought it was strange it kept asking for key permission (so I said no). All the sudden my fireox browser disappeared I had some crapware installed I had no interest in, plus another unpleasant surprise: whenever I load firefox OR Safari Yahoo search comes up even though my default for Safari is google search. How do I fix this? I'm trying to delete the program it came from but it says that it's 'in use', but when I pull up the task manager all that shows up are finder and Microsoft Word. Any word on how I can delete the covert adware/malware?

So after downloading Vuze a while back, I wound up with api.mybrowserbar redirects and a bunch of stuff pointing at some thing called Spigot, deterministically finger banging my bandwidth and internet experience in general.

Sorry, this assumes some knowledge of the command line and file structures.

The solution, grep is your friend.

Open Terminal and navigate to /Users/YOUR_COMPUTER_USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome

YOUR_COMPUTER_USERNAME must of course be replaced with your computer username, you can retrieve it by running the whoami command in your terminal.

grep -rnw '.' -e 'spigot'
and
grep -rnw '.' -e 'api.mybrowserbar'

get in there and remove that shit.

In the most annoying case, their genius software made itself the default restart page for whenever chrome unexpectedly crashes. This little tidbit is located deep inside a sort of huge JSON blob at

/Users/YOUR_COMPUTER_USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Preferences

I ended up using the terminal to delete it, and whatever it is, hopefully is gone (it no longer hijacks my browsers).

EDIT: I used the commands rm -rf to delete the original file.


Is it possible to send push notifications to the iPhone Simulator? I am developing a push notification infrastructure and would like to test it with the iPhone Simulator on a Mac.

Is this possible, or do I need to use a physical iPhone?

Push notifications don't work in the simulator.  You have to use a physical iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.

Good luck,

Mark

You can test Push Notification using any button Click event.
First of all you have to create dictionary, like below.

NSString *StrTemp = @"{'aps':{'alert':'Test alert','sound':'default'}}";
NSData *tempData = [StrTemp dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

NSDictionary *testNotification = [NSJSONSerialization
                                  JSONObjectWithData:tempData
                                  options:0
                                  error:nil];

And you can send notification like below.

[[[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate] application:[UIApplication sharedApplication] didReceiveRemoteNotification:testNotification];


Native OS X Windows Snap Features 2018 As an Ubuntu and MS-Windows user, I regularly used the hotkey to snap a window to half the screen.  This feature was built-in to the operating system.   There are 7 year old threads which lists third party apps, which means enough time has elapsed to build the capability into the OS.

Question: What is the proper term that one would use to search?  Is the capability baked into 2018 versions (10.11.6) of OSX?

It’s not baked in. Magnet seems to be the most popular app, and it’s what I use.

As Microsoft has patented windows snapping feature in order to prevent lawsuit Apple hasn't natively added this feature into MacOS

My suggestions would be if you are ok with third party apps

1.Magnet
2.Better snap tool
3.Spectacles

If you want to use something simple natively on Mac without third party then use mission control trackpad gestures or set shortcuts as per your needs to use Mac like a pro multitasker with multiple desktops here is my example

And when using mission control you can add apps to split screen just by swiping them to desired desktop


How to change the creation (st_birthtime) date/time of a file in Lion? touch(1) can only change modification and access times, but has no options for creation time. This does not work, at least not on Lion.

So how do I change the creation time, also referred to as birthtime in fstat(2)? There's no corresponding call in utimes(2) and there doesn't seem to be any command line tool for this.

I know I can copy the file to a new file, which then gets the current time as birthtime (and then delete the original), but surely there must be a better way?

touch -t also changes the creation time if the target modification time is before the original creation time.

SetFile can set the creation time to be before the modification time or in the future.

-d date    Sets the creation date, where date is a string of the
           form: "mm/dd/[yy]yy [hh:mm:[:ss] [AM | PM]]" Notes:
           Enclose the string in quotation marks if it contains spa-
           ces. The date must be in the Unix epoch, that is, between
           1/1/1970 and 1/18/2038. If the year is provided as a two-
           digit year, it is assumed to be in the 21st century and
           must be from 00 (2000) through 38 (2038).

This would set the creation time to the modification time:

SetFile -d "$(GetFileInfo -m test.txt)" test.txt

SetFile and GetFileInfo are part of the command line tools package, which can be downloaded from Xcode's preferences or developer.apple.com/downloads.

Try:

cat filename > newfile
mv filename ~/.Trash/
mv newfile filename

That should work.


Does a 10W or 12W charger make an iPhone willing to boot up sooner? I cannot be entirely sure about this but it seemed to happen this way:
When the iPhone 5, 6, or 7 was out of power, I could plug it into my car's USB charger or a portable USB battery charger for 10, even 15 minutes, before the phone is willing to start up.  A 15 minute wait, can be a bit too much -- if it were 2, 3 minutes, it would be more tolerable, but a good 15 minute, is too much.
But I noticed sometimes when I plug in the lightning jack for a charge, the iPhone will start immediately.
Is it due to some charger are supplying 5W, while some are supplying 10 or 12W?
I suspect iPhone might be doing some calculation: if possible power consumption is less than power input (10W), then be worry free and power up immediately. However, if possible power consumption is more than the input (5W), then don't power up first, accumulate first before powering up (and it turned out to be 15 minutes usually).
Does someone know for sure how this works?
P.S. Decemeber 2016: So today, I tried out an iPhone 5S, and saw that it was 1%, but too late, about 1-2 seconds after I plugged it in, it turned itself off. And thinking that it was a 39W 2 port charger with QC 3.0 (an Anker charger used in the car), I thought it should start up almost immediately. Not so, it took close to 15 minutes before it turned itself on, and I didn't look what battery level it was when it started up, but 10 minutes or so after the start up, I looked, and it was at 21%. So it looked like it could have turned itself off sooner.

Many factors - dead phone/0% battery isn't an entirely fixed point, depending on battery age/health, power requirements, temperature (winter cold...), calibration state etc it can mean anything from a calculated shutdown by the device at a level before excessive wear starts to occur, to the phone just suddenly dying at a point where there's still supposed to be juice left and it's not so much protecting itself, more like a blackout.
During discharge the voltage continuously decreases, which is what the phone keeps tabs on and cuts off at a safe level, but as it loses charge the max amperage/wattage also gives way, leading to further (short) voltage drops when it overextends itself.

As an example, if you're running low on battery and decide to take a bunch of photos before your phone dies, the high power draw will likely mean the phone shuts off a lot sooner than if you kept it in your pocket on standby.
But that means that in the latter scenario... once it's dead, it'll be deader, and it will take longer to bring up to a healthy enough voltage to boot - turning on, mind you, is a lot more power intensive than just staying alive once on. If the phone tries to boot before enough power is available it will black out again.

Input power obviously plays a large role here, just as you say, but it's not so much the phone calculating anything fancy or being tactical. Plug an iPhone with a worn-out battery into a semi-glitchy cable and it will happily bootloop for weeks on end instead of waiting and building up enough charge to actually manage to power on and chill out.

You're on the right track, key thing being that the brick can't power the phone directly, it's feeding the battery which feeds the phone, again a battery at low charge is flaky so even plugged in there needs to be a buffer, and once you get going that where you get the non-linear response. Say the phone needs 2W and it's getting 4W effective from a 5W brick, so 2W left to build charge. Double it to 8W and the surplus triples.

In fact the iPhone 6, 6s and 7 support being charged faster, as they are not limited to 1000 mA as smaller iPhones (iPhone 5s and earlier, iPhone SE).

So yes, you should see a faster boot with the newer models.


Can't change OS X Maps to use km instead of miles When I'm using the directions in the Maps application in Mavericks the distance is in miles instead of in km.

The "Measurement units" i set to "Metric" under "Advanced..." in Language & Region preferences.

I have toggled the setting multiple times and tried both relogging and rebooting to no avail.

Is there another way to change the unit to km instead of miles?

If you want to change the system to use metric units, you have to select a region (locale), which uses only metric units.
Apple is not very good when it comes to internationalization. Especially the many small nationalities suffer from this attitude. It feels like American culture is walking all over you.

Go to System Preferences / Language & Region / Select a region which definitely uses the metric system. Maps should finally work.


What launches an ancient "Update Helper" and how do I confirm it's not a trojan? Once in a while a program nags me out of the blue to update. I seldom yield since I always suspect a trojan. For example today I get a persistent:

I launch Activity Monitor and sure enough, there is indeed a process with that name.

Yet after the last upgrade (to El Capitan) I didn't bother installing either Google Chrome or Google Earth. I confirm this in my /Applications folder.

But I do see the folder ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Google Earth Web Plug-in.plugin, presumably left from a previous installation. I am puzzled. After looking at my login tasks

I see that Google Earth should not be running at login.

What launched it, and, more importantly, how do I confirm that such a request from an "Update Helper" is not a trojan?

Update

The answers and comments indicate that what I was asking is not clear. There are four questions/problems that need to be solved in this context. In order of increasing difficulty they are:

I no longer use Chrome or Earth. How do I remove the Google Software Updater.
How do I remove any one particular software updater if I no longer use, nor have installed since the last major OS X upgrade, that software?
Some random window pops up and asks me to enter my password. It's bad enough if my user files are contaminated, but it's a completely different problem if I give a suspect program superuser privileges and take a chance in contaminating the system. How do I confirm which piece of software is popping the window? (And how could something be running without being present in the login tasks? I don't see any root cron jobs. Where else should I be looking?)
There is a problem with OS X major release upgrades. I upgrade in-place (i.e., without formatting my drive). Both ~/Library and /Library are swelling
(sudo du -h -s /Library reports 3.5G and sudo du -h -s ~/Library reports 4.7G). How do I purge the unnecessary folders?

I meant to ask Q3, but I'll gladly settle for an answer to Q1.

In your answers and comments several people have recommended that this discussion will solve Q1. While that article is indeed very helpful, I don't have the file

~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/\
Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/install.py

The nearest file I have is

~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/\
Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/ksinstall

I'm tempted to just wipe out the folder

rm -fr ~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/

Suggestions?

As others have mentioned, this discussion has some good tips for accomplishing this.

I have not tested any of these solutions as I still frequently use Google Chrome and do not want to delete these files myself.

If your Library contains a install.py file:

python
~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/install.py --uninstall

or:

python
/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/install.py --uninstall

If your Library instead contains a ksinstall file:

~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/ksinstall --uninstall

or:

/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/ksinstall --uninstall

Test if it worked by running defaults read com.google.Keystone.Agent. If it worked you should see Domain com.google.Keystone.Agent does not exist.

Alternatively you can also disable the updater without removing it completely by running:

defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0. The 0 essentially tells the updater to never check for updates.

I just had the same thing start happening. Just found this:

https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1325327

May help explain. Seems it's a Google update error?


Why is my daughter's iPhone continuing to charge purchases to my account? I gave my iPhone 4 to my daughter and she keeps charging to my Apple account. She signs in with her own Apple ID, but I keep getting charged for apps she is buying.

Go to app store, then at the bottom of the Featured page you will see the Apple ID which is used in it. She might still be using yours.

Signing with her Apple ID to iCloud is not related to the store. Your account might still be there.

When buying apps that cost she can probably be using your credit card number..


How to activate iPhone12 and import original phone data? My original phone is iPhone7 and the new phone is iPhone12, how do I import the original phone data into the new phone?

I hope it helps. Here are all the options.
Use Quick Start to transfer data to a new iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210216
Use iTunes or the Finder to transfer data from your previous iOS device to your new iPhone.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210218
Restore your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch from a iCloud backup
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203977


Seamless title bar and terminal background? How can I make the title (and tab) bar of iTerm 2 exactly the same color as the terminal background so that it's impossible to tell where one starts and the other begins?

How it is at the moment:

What I'd like it to be:

Sorry I don't really know for sure, but there is no option for that I know of. As a last resort you could edit the source code for the interface, you could fork there.

If you wanted you can check the advanced tab in the preferences, but i don't think you'll be successful there.


How to migrate to a new Mac, including SSH keys and dotfiles? I have an up-to-date 2018 MacBook Pro that I am replacing with a different 2018 MacBook Pro. I'd like to migrate all the content from the first one to the new one, including the SSH keys, all the dotfiles (.gitconfig, .zshrc etc.), PostgreSQL databases, Homebrew-installed packages, and the system and application preferences.

Does macOS Migration Assistant transfer everything from one drive to another? Or does it only look at apps, documents and ignores configuration files?

Yea, macOS Migration Assistant ignores configuration files.

Mackup is really good as you can get a really recent version of the files configured, and you can easily write your own configuration files to backup other specific files and locations you may want! If you create a brewfile and list of what you’ll need I found it fairly easy to reinstall dotfiles, formulas, apps quickly!


Install gcc to mac via Terminal I have installed Xcode and the command line tools from the Mac Developers website, which I have read a few times is a prerequisite. I also installed the MacPorts program. In terminal:

sudo port install gcc48
sudo port select -set gcc mp-gcc48

All the above went smoothly until I type:

hash gcc

When I press enter, I get the following error message:

-bash: hash: gcc: not found

I am at a loss and do not know how to proceed to successfully install gcc on my Mac (which is running Mac OS X 10.9.1).

Much obliged to any suggestions and or alternatives to installing the gcc

You might be better off installing gcc from homebrew than Macports.

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
brew doctor
brew update
brew search gcc

There're are about 6 versions of gcc available from this package manager. See http://brew.sh for more details on the homebrew tools. Also this thread has more details on gcc and homebrew: How do I install GCC via Homebrew? Lastly, the gcc error in your shell is similar to this thread: I installed Xcode but I still don't have gcc in my terminal

I don't think your port select command did what you expected. The manual states that the select command selects between multiple versions of a versioned port, which I believe is not your case here:

pejvan$ port help select
Usage: select --list --set --show --summary <arguments>

Select between multiple versions of a versioned port

This allows you to choose which version, among several installed versions
of a port, is to be considered primary.  What this means is which version
becomes the one most would consider the default, e.g. the one run without
specifying any version.

After you successfully run the install command for gcc (here version 4.9):

sudo port install gcc49

You can verify you've got the gcc binaries installed:

pejvan$ ls -l /opt/local/bin/gcc*
-rwxr-xr-x  2 root  admin    42912  3 Jun 03:44 /opt/local/bin/gcc-ar-mp-4.9
-rwxr-xr-x  3 root  admin  1082788  3 Jun 03:44 /opt/local/bin/gcc-mp-4.9
-rwxr-xr-x  2 root  admin    42992  3 Jun 03:44 /opt/local/bin/gcc-nm-mp-4.9
-rwxr-xr-x  2 root  admin    43000  3 Jun 03:44 /opt/local/bin/gcc-ranlib-mp-4.9

You can then run gcc with the full path to the binaries:

pejvan$ gcc-mp-4.9 --version
gcc-mp-4.9 (MacPorts gcc49 4.9-20140416_2) 4.9.0 20140416 (prerelease)
Copyright (C) 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

If you want to replace (temporarily or permanently) the clang complier by gcc, you can do it by setting the CC env var the following way for example:

export CC=/opt/local/bin/gcc-mp-4.9 # set GCC as default C compiler

As a side note, please note that for the port select gccVersion to work, you will need to install gcc_select:

pejvan$ port info gcc_select
gcc_select @0.1_8 (sysutils)

Description:          gcc_select installs files that allow 'port select' to switch the default version of gcc. It symlinks the standard compiler executables in
                      the MacPorts prefix to the selected version.

I haven't looked at the details of the package, so I'm not sure whether it would work between clang and port installed gcc or only with several different versions of port installed gcc packages.


Ping cannot resolve .io domains yet nslookup can macOS 10.12.1 (16B2555) on an early 2015 Macbook Pro.

I can't resolve any .io domains on this machine.  Other people on the same network can.  This happens here at the office, and at home.

I've tried different browsers, I've turned it off and on again.

[~]$ nslookup ngrok.io
Server:     10.15.0.1
Address:    10.15.0.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   ngrok.io
Address: 52.25.124.181
Name:   ngrok.io
Address: 52.41.214.241
Name:   ngrok.io
Address: 54.68.226.153

[~]$ ping ngrok.io
ping: cannot resolve ngrok.io: Unknown host

If I add the domain manually to /etc/hosts, and then run a traceroute, I don't see anything abnormal.  I'm able to bring up the domain in a browser.

Definitely seems like a DNS issue, however, I'm not using DNS settings that are any different from anyone else on either my home or work network.

If I change the DNS servers manually to 8.8.8.8, it STILL does not work.

You may have been impacted by recent issues of a portion of the .io TLD Nameservers delivering NXDOMAIN responses which then cascaded throughout all DNS entries globally.

Only a portion of the nameservers were doing this, leading to discrepancies in the cached values downstream, which in turn lead to intermittent failure to lookup the host server when making requests.


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

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

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

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


Reduce iTunes match bitrate I have iTunes match with a decent library (12k+ songs) on my Macbook Air.

I'm running out of free space on my SSD and noticed that the size of my library has doubled since I signed up for iTunes Match.

It looks like a lot of my songs have been upgraded to 256kbps bitrate.

Is there a way to go down to 128 or 192kbps in order to save some space?

I have seen the same thing happen to my hard drive since enrolling in iTunes Match. Fortunately there are a couple of options.

One option is to select any songs you'd like to down-convert, right-click (or ctrl-click) the selection, and choose "Create xxx Version". This will re-encode the tracks based on the encoding options you have set within iTunes Preferences. Feel free to adjust these settings to the quality of your choice. Once they have finished converting, you may remove the higher-quality local copies. iTunes in the Cloud will retain the higher-rate 256kbps version, but your computer will now have a lower-quality version to playback from.

You can also remove local copies of songs entirely, by selecting them and pressing "delete". The songs will remain in your iTunes library as stream-able tracks through iTunes Match. Before doing this, though, I highly recommend backing up your entire library of songs to an external hard drive for safekeeping.

Hopefully between a combination of these two options you can reclaim much of your lost space.

iTunes Match music is available in the iTunes+ format, which does not include DRM, and you can use the following menu to re-encode selected songs:

At this time there is not a way to force a specific version of a song to be uploaded to iTunes Match.


How to install the 2014 NTP security fix on 10.6.8 Snow Leopard For 10.6.8 would it work to open the 10.8 NTP update.dmg with pacifist and put in the new versions of the following 6 files?:

/usr/bin/sntp
/usr/bin/ntp-keygen
/usr/bin/ntpq
/usr/sbin/ntpdc
/usr/sbin/ntpdate
/usr/sbin/ntpd

I am not sure about including the ntptrace file that was in the 10.8 sbin directory. What does it do? Also what would the appropriate chown command be to get these files properly recognized?

For 10.6.8 would it work to open the 10.8 NTP update.dmg with pacifist and put in the new versions of the following 6 files?

No it would not work. You will probably get a segmentation fault due to major changes that happened between 10.6 and 10.8 (I don't think you could even make 10.8 binaries work on 10.7). You can easily try it, however, to convince yourself. Extract them with Pacifist to some temp directory and just run them (eg. extract ntpd and do a ./ntpd --version ). If you don't get a segmentation fault and you get a printout of the version, you might be fine. However, there's a better option.

Instead of using Apple's binaries, you should compile NTP yourself. It's not difficult at all and it requires Xcode (which is free anyway).

See my answer to a similar question that was posted the other day on how to compile NTP: Disabling NTP on OS X Lion or older

A more straightforward approach is here...been out for a while, and uses far fewer commands and steps: http://www.macissues.com/2014/12/24/how-to-manually-patch-ntp-for-os-x-10-6-and-10-7/


imac: keyboard stuck on caps lock From time to time the (Apple USB) keyboard of my imac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010, mac os 10.12.5) gets stuck on caps lock (namely all letters are printed capital, and I can't turn capital off), and I have to unplug the USB cable to fix this; when I plug it back, the light is on, and I can turn caps lock off. This happens more frequently after installing mac os updates, then it gradually becomes less frequent.

Are there an explanation and a solution for this issue?

Just unplug the USB from the back of your computer. Plug the USB back into the computer. Solved.


Wifi drop out on macbook pro retina late 2013 with El Capitan Constant wi fi drop out only on my Macbook pro retina (late 2013) with el capitan installed. My imac is not affected, nor any other appliance using the wifi in our house. Can anyone help? Will the solution posted previously about similar problem with Yosemite work for El Capitan? Thanks in adavance

Change your security from wpa2 to wpa. Helped me solving this problems.


How to always show menubar with fullscreen apps? Does anyone know if it is possible to keep the menubar in Mac OS Lion visible for fullscreen apps instead of hidden until hovered over with a mouse or trackpad?

I imagine there's some Terminal command I can enter to adjust this preference.

You can adjust this on a per-app basis by editing the plist. My memory is rusty but here are instructions, if I remember correctly.

Show package contents for the app you want
Edit the file Contents/info.plist
Search for "LSUIPresentationMode" (you may want to use a plist editor). It will look like this if you use a regular text editor:

<key>LSUIPresentationMode</key>
<integer>4</integer>

If the property does not exist, then you can create it - it must be inserted in the correct alphabetical order.
Change the value of the integer accordingly:

LSUI PresentationMode 0 - Does not hide Dock or Menu Bar.
LSUIPresentationMode 1 - Hides Dock. Dock will appear if mouse moved to where it is located. Menu Bar will remain.
LSUIPresentationMode 2 - Removes Dock. Menu Bar will remain.
LSUIPresentationMode 3 - Removes Menu Bar and Dock.
LSUIPresentationMode 4 - Hides Menu Bar and Dock. Menu Bar or Dock will appear if mouse moved to where Menu Bar or Dock is located.

For more information on LSUIPresentationMode usage, see the developer documentation:

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/General/Reference/InfoPlistKeyReference/Articles/LaunchServicesKeys.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009250-113616-TPXREF134

just hide or resize your dock and you should be fine


External hard drive won't show up on finder (theres more to this) So I plugged in my hard drive, and deleted a file on it, a .nfo file. I forgot I had a file in the trash and so when I ejected the disk, my mac prompted me an alert like "disk is in use" with a force eject button. I force ejected without thinking, because I really didn't think any of my files were in use (I checked the usual places like whether a video file was playing somewhere etc.) When I try to plug it back, I realise it doesn't read or appear on finder. I've restarted my computer and still nothing. Other hard drives work so its definitely an isolated problem. Any ideas?

Update: I can't do a Disk Utility repair? the option isn't even available

You should be able to see your drive in Disk Utility, even though the data may be corrupted, so you may need to wipe the drive in order to make it usable again.

The solution of this problem can be chkdsk command from windows.
It doesn't require admin privilegies, so you can do this at work

Connect your disk at Windows PC. It will appear as [drive letter]

Press Win-R, and then type chkdisk [drive letter]: /f Press Enter.

When the process finishes, safely remove disk through windows tray and, have a happy day!


Macbook Pro boots successfully when using hard drive in USB enclosure but doesn't boot when connected internally Apologies for the long question. I will keep it as simple as I can.

Last week my Macbook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2010) started to act strange.

It started when I tried to open Skype and received an error complaining that the program could not start because Skype could not read (or lock, unfortunately I can't remember) it's skype.plist file.

I restarted my Macbook hoping that would fix the problem (and I hadn't restarted in a while so I figured it was overdue).

My Macbook restarted and played the startup chime but then hung at the grey startup screen  with the spinning wheel. I thought nothing of it and did a hard shutdown but no matter how many times I did, the Macbook never advanced past the grey startup screen.

I tried to boot using Safe and Verbose mode and got the following error in both cases:

BootCacheControl : Unable to open /var/db/BootCache.playlist: 22 invalid argument

I googled the error and tried various solutions with no luck.

The Macbook would boot to the built-in Mountain Lion recovery partition.

At this point I decided to backup my data so I could mess with the hard drive a bit more without fear of losing any data. I booted in to the recovery partition and cloned my hard drive onto another using a USB enclosure. It seemed to work OK and I verified all of my files were on the backup hard drive by plugging it into another Macbook.

After cloning my hard drive I verified and repaired the disk and disk permissions using the disk utility in the recovery partition but that had no effect.

At this point I decided to reinstall Mountain Lion. I tried numerous times to reinstall it with the hard drive inside the Macbook (both using the recovery partition and a bootable Mountain Lion SD card) but couldn't get it to install. Eventually I got it to install, but only when the hard drive was placed in a USB enclosure. I knew this probably indicated a bigger underlying problem but decided to go ahead anyway.

I installed Mountain Lion successfully but now it will not boot with the hard drive connected inside the Macbook, only when it is used in my USB enclosure. When the hard drive is placed in my USB enclosure it boots to Mountain Lion without any problem.

With the hard drive inside the Macbook:

If the Macbook is booted as standard, it hangs on the grey startup screen with spinning wheel
If it is booted in verbose mode, it seems to boot successfully (shows no errors when the white text show up) and then hangs on a black screen with a solid white cursor in the top left corner (I can type at this point but it does nothing, it doesn't appear to be a terminal window)
If it is booted in safe mode, the progress bar appears, progresses to the end and then hangs on the grey startup screen with spinning wheel

I noticed a lot of suggestions on the internet to replace the hard drive cable to the motherboard. I did and it had no effect.

I've tried using another hard drive running a brand new install of Mountain Lion and that behaves exactly the same (boots fine using a USB enclosure but doesn't boot when connected internally).

I've booked an appointment at the Apple store but figured it was worth posting the question anyway, in case anybody has a similar issue in the future (hopefully I'll be able to post the answer, if nobody else does, after a visit to the Genius bar).

Any suggestions?

Thanks for reading.

You have eliminated the possibility of a hardware issue on the hard drive by installing a new hard drive and also by installing the operating system on the previous hard drive via USB.
You have replaced the cable connecting the internal hard drive to the mother board, so it's not a cable problem.
The only thing left seems to be the hard drive controller on the motherboard. I expect the Genius bar will recommend replacing the motherboard.
For an older model Mac like yours, it might be worth searching for a replacement motherboard and having a local Mac repair shop swapping it in for you. It might cost less.

This YouTube video was incredibly helpful, and worked for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amg5w0rlwDo

I'd only add that as I chose to upgrade my HDD to SSD at the same time as fixing this problem using James' technique, I had to re-set the PRAM by starting-up while holding the CMD-OPT-P-R keys down.  Before I did that, the MacBook would boot from the drive connected to USB, but not while installed directly onto the HDD SATA cable.  Once the PRAM was re-set, all works properly (and I'm not even sure I need a new cable).


How can I launch a printer scanner from Spotlight? I can go to the "Printers & Scanners" panel from Spotlight, but I cannot call the scanner directly. Is there any way to make Spotlight index a shortcut to the default printer's Scanner app?

It would save the 2 to 3 clicks it takes to click on the correct printer if needed, click on the "Scan" tab and finally on the "Open Scanner" button.

(It's rather counter-intuitive to have to go to a System Preferences panel to be able to scan a document)

[Edit: I mean this app:]

Easy,

Open System Preferences
Select the "Printers & Scanners" control panel
Select the Scanner that you want to create the shortcut for
Once the scanning window opens, right-click on the Scanner's application icon on the right side of your dock, and select "option/keep on dock"
Next time you want to open the scanner, just click on its docked icon
If it is a combo printer/scanner, step 5 may open the printer queue window instead of going straight to scan mode. If this occurs, simply the click the "Scan" button that shows in the Printer Queue window.

Type the word scan into spotlight and click the resulting icon.


How to send an email from command line? How to send an email from command line or script? I want to be able to run the script programmatically by passing the receiver and the message.

There are two programs that I am aware of which will easily allow you to configure your Mac to send email from the command line.

I have written up HOWTOs for both of them:

mailsend
msmtp

Of the two, I suggest msmtp.

Configuration is complicated enough that I'm not sure if I should replicate all of the steps here, but I will mention that if you use
Homebrew
you can install msmtp using

brew install msmtp --with-macosx-keyring

Then the rest is just a matter of setting up the related configuration files

The first is /usr/local/etc/msmtprc

# Begin msmtprc
# Set default values for all following accounts.
defaults
tls on
logfile ~/.msmtp.log

# A first gmail address
account example@gmail.com
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
protocol smtp
auth on
from example@gmail.com
user example@gmail.com
tls on
tls_starttls on

# this next line is crucial: you have to point to the correct security certificate for GMail.
# If this doesn't work, check the mstmp documentation
# at http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/documentation.html for help
#
# This next line should all be on one long line:
tls_trust_file /path/to/Thawte Roots/Thawte SSLWeb Server Roots/thawte Premium Server CA/Thawte Premium Server CA.pem

# Set a default account
# You need to set a default account for Mail
account default : example@gmail.com

# end msmtprc

Note that tls_trust_file line should point to wherever you have downloaded and installed the certificates from https://www.thawte.com/roots/index.html.

I put mine in ~/Dropbox/Thawte Roots so that I can have it on all of my Macs.

Then you need a ~/.mailrc file to say where the msmtp binary is located. If you use brew it will be /usr/local/bin/msmtp so the file would look like this:

set sendmail="/usr/local/bin/msmtp"

The last but crucial step is making sure your Keychain has the information exactly in the format that msmtp will expect it:

I think that covers most of the details. See http://www.tuaw.com/2010/05/04/msmtp-a-free-tool-to-send-email-from-terminal/ if you want a few more specifics.

Since it's Unix based, you can use sendmail command.


Where can I find a pricing guide for used Apple devices? I am looking for a pricing guide for used Apple laptops, desktops, and iOS devices. Does anyone have a recommendation on where to go to find a guide like this? Preferably a free guide.

http://www.everymac.com has estimated current price for every model
(It's at the bottom of the table).
I'm not sure where they are getting those from though.

Try eBay or check out Green Star Tronics.


Sync Safari bookmarks between computers I've got a lot of bookmarks in Safari on my iMac. How do I get the same bookmarks show up in Safari on my MBA? Both using latest OS X with iCloud. I have checked Bookmarks in the iCloud settings, but no sync is taking place.

Ahhh... I don't know what happened but somehow the bookmarks that I edited on the iMac just didn't reflect on the MBA at all. I am only using really the Bookmarks Bar and don't keep bookmarks anywhere else.

What I did:
Went into iCloud settings on the MBA. Switched Bookmarks syncing off. Then back on. It asked me if I wanted to sync and merge the local bookmarks with the ones in the cloud. I said yes. It synced, and I got double bookmarks everywhere (iMac and MBA). Then I just deleted the duplicates, and all seem synced and well on both devices. I sync with some iPhones, iPads too and it seems ok. The bookmarks there appear in the "Bookmarks Bar" subfolder.


Where is the sound file of Installer success stored? I've tracked Installer.app to be located at /System/Library/CoreServices/ but I can't find the sound that plays after a successful installation.

I've looked at the following paths:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Install.framework
/System/Library/CoreServices/Installer.app
/System/Library/Sounds

Where is that sound file located?

The file you are looking for (on El Capitan) is located in: /System/Library/Components/CoreAudio.component/Contents/SharedSupport/SystemSounds/system/

Specifically, the file is burn complete.aif (or burn failed.aif, they're identical).

Older versions of OS X (unknown when it changed) have it at (source):
/System/Library/Components/CoreAudio.component/Contents/Resources/SystemSounds/system/

The install success sound is usually just your default system notification sound (i.e., Glass or whatever you have set).

If you want to set a custom sound, make sure it's in AIFF format, place it in one of these locations and choose the sound from System Preferences > Sound > Sound Effects

/System/Library/Sounds/
/Library/Sounds/
/Users/< username >/Library/Sounds/


How to obtain the direct link to a specific podcast episode in iOS iTunes Store? My friend, on her iPhone, wants to email me an iTunes Music Store link directly to a specific episode of a podcast. She wants to do this without downloading any 3rd party apps.

Problem is....at least half the time, the link she sends me takes me to a page with many episodes of the given podcast. We just want to link directly to one particular episode so I can be assured I'm gonna' download the right one.

How can this be done?

I don't think it is possible to obtain the link to a specific episode, either from the iTunes app on iOS where you can browse the store, or from the iOS music app after if has already been downloaded.

Often a direct link to the episode is included in the show notes that are included, but the built in apps have scant support for allowing you to actually view these properly, they just overlay the text (or the top section of it) without giving you a way to interact with it.

To be honest, and I know you specifically asked not to suggest other apps, but given the above should hopefully be a suitable answer in it's own right I will do so anyway.  Try Instacast, it's a far superior app for both downloading/subscribing and actually listening to podcasts.  As you can see if allows full acces to the show notes, you can just click the download link provided to copy the URL, or use the built in sharing functions.

While you are at it, you should download the Ask Different Podcast to test it ;)

google the podcast episode by name, it will give you the link.


How do I delete a song from iCloud? I updated to iTunes 11.0.2 very recently, and I'm fairly certain this version specifically brought a change of wording regarding deleting songs from iCloud, and I'm curious if there's changed functionality to match.

After perusing Apple's support documentation, it seems I was correct:

I intend to replace the current version of this song, and figured the easiest way to ensure everything updates would be to delete the song from iCloud and my Library, and then import the new version.

Now that the functionality of deleting songs has changed, how do I delete the song from both my local library and iCloud as well?

No, the functionality hasn't changed. The first screen shot is what you see when you want to delete an item you have purchased. As part of "iTunes in the Cloud," you can never delete those items, but you can hide them. Deleting from iTunes Match is the same, and that's the second dialog you show.

I bieleive you are wanting to replace a copy of a song you have in your library and in iCloud. Using iTunes Match I ran into this problem. When you delete a song make sure you select delete from iCloud as well in the pop up to remove it from any device using iTunes Match at the same time.


Hardware acceleration for flash videos in Google Chrome Is there any way to enable flash video hardware acceleration in Google Chrome? I get up to 300% cpu usage, while playing flash video.

Using OSX 10.9.5 and latest Chrome on a MBPr 13" late 2013.

In Safari I get around 90% CPU usage. Which is bad, but not as bad.

Step 1 would be to look the status of your Chrome GPU settings.

Paste this "chrome://gpu/" in Chrome web address field.

On my MBA 10.9.5 Chrome Version 38.0.2125.101 it looks like this

Graphics Feature Status
Canvas: Hardware accelerated
Flash: Hardware accelerated
Flash Stage3D: Hardware accelerated
Flash Stage3D Baseline profile: Hardware accelerated
Compositing: Hardware accelerated
Rasterization: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable
Threaded Rasterization: Disabled
Video Decode: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable
Video Encode: Hardware accelerated
WebGL: Hardware accelerated

Pending on your result (Flash- Not accelerated) proceed to step 2:

Do following:

  To force Chrome / Chromium to use hardware acceleration, open a new
  tab, type "chrome://flags" (without quotes), search for "Override
  software rendering list", enable it and restart Chrome / Chromium.

Optional Step 3 (my settings)

Paste this "chrome://plugins/" in web address field.

Disable the Chrome build in Adobe Flash player aka PepperFlashPlayer.plugin

If you have not already have done so, get the Adobe Flash player from Adobe, that will be now used by Chrome.

This command allows me to stream content without running out of memory:

Google-chrome --disable-gpu


Turn on Bluetooth on an iMac without a keyboard or mouse? I have a 2015 iMac, that I use with a Magic Keyboard and a Magic Trackpad. Today I was changing some settings and accidentally turned off Bluetooth, disconnecting my peripherals.

Is there any way to get Bluetooth re-enabled without a USB keyboard/mouse? I don't have either a wired mouse or keyboard. Could I remote in from my iPhone somehow?

If I have to get them, will a wired keyboard be sufficient to enable Bluetooth without a mouse?

You can use the Magic Keyboard/Trackpad as wired devices by using a Lightning-to-USB cable (like the one from your iPhone).

After rebooting , nothing happened.   But, I found an answer!  If your wifi is still working,  connect a wifi enabled mouse and it works!


Yosemite won't boot any more after attempting to enable FileVault and TRIM I installed Yosemite yesterday and it was working fine.

Now whenever it tries to boot it runs Safe Mode and fails 1/3 of the way through.

From what I can remember I went to enable FileVault and backed out of it as I didn't enter my correct iCloud information, and didn't want to go down the key generation route.

I also tried to enable TRIM.

This morning I restarted my machine after installing Kies and it wouldn't boot. The error I'm getting is this:

Oct 26 11:01:33 localhost Unknown[358]: Keyboard Layouts: duplicate keyboard layout identifier -16899.
Oct 26 11:01:33 localhost Unknown[358]: Keyboard Layouts: keyboard layout identifier -16899 has been replaced with -28673.
Oct 26 11:01:33 localhost Unknown[358]: Keyboard Layouts: duplicate keyboard layout identifier -16900.
Oct 26 11:01:33 localhost Unknown[358]: Keyboard Layouts: keyboard layout identifier -16900 has been replaced with -28674.
Oct 26 11:01:34 localhost Unknown[358]: Setting boot completed.
Oct 26 11:01:34 localhost Language Chooser[357]: Could not write to /var/log/CDIS.custom
Oct 26 11:01:34 localhost OSIESpringboard[372]: Can not connect to /var/run/systemkeychaincheck.socket: No such file or directory
Oct 26 11:01:34 localhost OSIESpringboard[372]: Failed to unlock login keychain.
Oct 26 11:01:34 localhost Unknown[358]: 2014-10-26 11:01:34.864 OS X
Utilities[372:303] *** WARNING: -[NSImage compositeToPoint:fromRect:operation:] is deprecated in MacOSX 10.8 and later. Please use -[NSImage drawAtPoint:fromRect:operation:fraction:] instead.
Oct 26 11:01:35 localhost Unknown[358]: Keyboard Layouts: duplicate keyboard layout identifier -16899.
Oct 26 11:01:35 localhost Unknown[358]: Keyboard Layouts: keyboard layout identifier -16899 has been replaced with -28673.
Oct 26 11:01:35 localhost Unknown[358]: Keyboard Layouts: duplicate keyboard layout identifier -16900.
Oct 26 11:01:35 localhost Unknown[358]: Keyboard Layouts: keyboard layout identifier -16900 has been replaced with -28674.
Oct 26 11:01:40 localhost Unknown[358]: 2014-10-26 11:01:40.167 OS X Utilities[372:303] *** WARNING: Method userSpaceScaleFactor in class NSWindow is deprecated on 10.7 and later. It should not be used in new applications. Use convertRectToBacking: instead.

What could be causing this error?

I've tried two things:

Installing mavericks from the recovery drive - this fails.
Disabling trim from the command line.

Neither of these work, is there something else causing this issue?

Edit: verbose mode stops at "still waiting for root device"

Yosemite apparently uses a new security feature called kext signing. This will prevent the old method of TRIM enabling. See the Trim Enabler FAQ, The question Recovering from stop sign on boot screen might help you:

  Recovering from stop sign on boot screen

  For those who are stuck on the grey boot screen, here’s how you get
  back into OS X:

  Step 1: Boot recovery mode by holding Cmd+R during boot

  Step 2: Is your volume encrypted (FileVault)? If so, first open Disk Utility from the menu bar and unlock/mount your drive. [see here for the procedure]

  Step 3: Open the Terminal from the menu bar

  Step 4: Run this command: nvram boot-args

  Does it say kext-dev-mode=1? if so, you can skip to Step 6. If it
  says error getting variable, continue with these steps:

  Step 5: Run this command: nvram boot-args=kext-dev-mode=1

  Step 6: Reboot back in to Recovery Mode again

  Step 7: Run these commands, replacing Your Disk Name with the name of your Mac disk
  (partition). You can type ls /Volumes to get a list of volumes. Note
  the quotes around the disk path and that there should be no / before
  System.

  cd "/Volumes/Your Disk Name"

  touch System/Library/Extensions

  kextcache -u "/Volumes/Your Disk name"

  Step 8: Wait until it finishes (can take as long as 5-10 minutes,
  don’t abort it) and reboot. You should now be back in OS X with Trim enabled.

  The commands are not working!

  The commands will work if they are entered correctly. However, if you are not familiar with the Terminal, it can be hard to follow the steps above. If can’t get the Terminal commands to work, or want an easier option, you can also use the Recovery Mode to reinstall OS X. Reinstalling OS X will only reinstall the system files, leaving your files and preferences untouched.

Please check the original source for updates!

EDIT:
See my answer here: Since the release of 10.10.4, Apple now provides a new tool called trimforce, allowing users to activate TRIM also on unsupported disks. No more dangerous experiments with third party software necessary.
/EDIT


Do the Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad support “middle click”? I'm currently using the old Apple Mighty Mouse and I configured clicking on the trackball as a "middle click" that's been very handy for opening links in new tabs, closing tabs, etc. However, the mouse is starting to show its age and I've been looking at Apple's Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad, and I'm wondering - do either of these support the "middle click" operation? If not, is there a gesture or a multi-finger click that can be used for the same things (i.e. opening new tabs, etc)?

Our friends over at SuperUser have an answer for us:

Here are two utilities that will allow you to customize gestures on the Magic Mouse, including adding middle click:

MagicPrefs
Better Touch Tool

Middle Click is a free app and is perfect for that.


How can I restore my device with simply ipsw file and iTunes? I want to restore my iPod touch 4 gen. using a previously downloaded .ipsw file from the web instead of iTunes trying to download it again. I have tried putting the .ipsw file in the ~/Library/iTunes/iPod Software Updates/ folder but it still downloads another one.

By the way, my iPod is stuck in recovery mode and I cannot cannot get it out of it except restoring the iPod. What should I do?

Option-click the Restore button in iTunes and a standard file-selection dialog comes up allowing you to find your .ipsw file.

downlaod an app called tinyumbrella on your computer when its done downloading click on the question mark button on the right it will say get out of recovery mode click that and you are done


What is the purpose of an AAE file? First, some background:

For those of you who edit photos using Apple software, you may have encountered AAE sidecar files, which are generated automatically by the Photos app (for iOS or macOS) when you export an edited image. These sidecars contain the data representing the edits made to the original image, such as crops or recoloring. Following an export, these AAE sidecar files will usually be located in the same directory as the original, exported image/JPEG file.

Theoretically, edits made to an image using the Photos app (on iOS or macOS) are "non-destructive," meaning that you can always revert to the original image anytime after editing.

Now, the problem:

For the life of me, I cannot understand if these AAE files are actually good for anything once they exist. If you try to import an original image file and its AAE into the Photos app, you only see the original image. The edits don't seem to transfer.

Likewise, advice from Apple and user forums regarding the transfer of edited photos suggest that you use iMessage, AirDrop, or other methods to copy the edited image itself to the new destination. This process, however, defeats the idea of non-destructive edits since it will prevent you from ever reverting to the original image.

Finally, the question:

Does the AAE sidecar file serve any purpose? If so, what does it actually offer a user or program once it exists? Can we do anything with it?

According to several sources this feature was introduced with the launch of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite (now macOS Yosemite).

The AAE file format is proprietary, which usually means that only Apple, and Apple-approved, software can interpret the contents. Some cross platform apps that can take advantage of the AAE format are Lightroom and Photoshop. However the file appears to be a regular XML file.

A sample file for a slow motion video would look like this: https://pastebin.com/raw/1r8416rm

The data tag is encoded with base64 and, when decoded, contains a property list (.plist) formatted file that looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/CYPVcTO.jpg

Simply put, an AAE file contains information that specific apps can use to apply effects to photos and videos based on edits that a user makes in the iOS Photos app.

Does this help? Found it when I googled "macos AAE file".
https://fileinfo.com/extension/aae


Looking for a GTD tool with synchronisation capability There are a lot of Getting Things Done (GTD) tools out there I can use to manage my tasks. Additionally, most of them include synchronisation capabilities I can use to synchronize my iPad, MacBook etc. There is only one problem: they all use the Amazon Cloud/a Cloud located not in Europe... But I'm only allowed to use a Cloud that is located in Europe (data privacy aspects etc... this is a constraint of my employer). Does anybody know a GTD tool that is hosted on an "European Cloud" or that can be installed on my private cloud?

OmniFocus is able to sync between instances (OS X and iOS)

locally via Bonjour
via a shared directory
via any WebDAV server

If you're using Lion or later, the Reminders app that comes with the OS is pretty good and it auto syncs with your iOS devices.


Would a Displayport-Thunderbolt cable unlock better performance from my external display than an HDMI 2.0 cable? I just bought a new monitor (an Asus XG35VQ), but when I try to use my MacBook (Pro 13", mid-2014) with it, I can only get 30Hz on the native 3440x1440 resolution.
At first I thought there was something wrong either with the monitor or with macOS (running Big Sur), but then I realized the issue is probably with the connection.
I want to avoid using the DisplayPort on the monitor to connect to the Mac because there is only one of them in the monitor and it's being used to connect to a different machine. All I have left is an HDMI 2.0 port. I'm using the cable that was supplied with the monitor.
Would it help me get a better refresh rate if I used a Thunderbolt->HDMI cable instead of an HDMI->HDMI cable? Or would it not make any difference?
And what about a Thunderbolt->DisplayPort? Or a HDMI->DisplayPort?
My monitor supports up to 100Hz, but if I can get it to 60Hz I'll be super happy already.
Thanks!

For this connection you could have four bottlenecks:

Input connector on your monitor
Output connector on your Mac/PC
faulty cable/lower-spec cable
GPU (graphics processing unit) limitation

As you state, the input connector on your monitor is an HDMI 2.0
port, which is capable of 4k@60fps.
A mid 2014 13" MBP does only support 3840x2160@30fps output over the HDMI port. This may be at least one of the reasons you are not getting the higher refresh rate.
You can simply test the cable with another device. I also would not really suspect it, unless you have a reason to believe it is physically damaged.
The MBP specs also state that the output is too limited for your high refresh rate monitor. There has also been a similar question on AD:

Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on up to two external displays, both at millions of colors

What this means for you
You will not be able to get a higher refresh rate, since you are using an older HDMI port and the MBPs video output is too limited. So even if you would get a Mini-DP → HDMI 2.x cable, you shouldn't  be able to get a higher refresh rate.

Note: On your machine the Thunderbolt 2 connector can act as a Mini-DP connector, which is capable of higher resolution/refresh rates than some older HDMI ports. Yet, this depends on the exact comparison. Have a look at the Wikipedia page about the different HDMI specifications and Display Port connections.
Double check which MacBooks support what monitor resolutions and refresh rates on Everymac.

Thunderbolt to display port could offer a better performance in refresh rate like you said, however I would believe it to be quite minimal. I recently switched from HDMI to thunderbolt for my monitor and I don't notice a difference.


How to seamlessly switch between spelling languages in Mail? I write my emails in two languages. So system-wide spelling language setting is not very useful for me, since in span of working day I usually write half of my emails in one language and half in another. Now the current spelling language switching mechanism is not very good. First of all I need to invoke spelling window with CMD + : then change the language, then close the window, refocus my mail window and then continue writing. Also the spelling with the new language is applied only to the text I am entering after changing the language. Previous text is not spelled, unless I click each word individually.

So I have the following questions:

Does there exist a quick method to change the language? Keyboard shortcut? List of the languages appearing after right click the way it is organised in Google Chrome?  Maybe there is a possibility to associate spelling language to keyboard layout? I use different layout for different languages, so this would be very natural.
How to automatically apply spelling to the text which was entered before the change of the language?

I use Mac OS X 10.6.6.

I have just spent some time with Mountain Lion after I added a custom dictionary (Afrikaans) to the ~/Library/Spelling folder (.dic and .aff).

Findings:
- If I set the "Spelling" in "System Preferences -> Language and text -> Text" to Afrikaans, the Afrikaans spell check works great.
- If I set the "Spelling" to "Automatic by language" detection between English and Afrikaans it does not work correctly. It never recognises Afrikaans, checks everything as English.

So in mail.app the only workable option seems to be to set it up to check email upon sending, and to select the language at the bottom of the pop-up box.

Alternatively buy Postbox, where you can install a Thunderbird dictionary and select the language manually. But Postbox is not doing retina displays (yet) - it looks awful at the moment on retina.

I have disabled the as-you-type spell checker, and set the Mail.app setting to check spelling first when I press 'Send'. The pop-up spell checker window enables me to select language. This way changing the spell checking language applies to the whole email.
I suppose any way to check you spelling apart from the as-you-type spell checker gives you full control over the language.


Thumbnails not displaying in new Photos app included in 10.10.3 I recently upgraded our family iMac to 10.10.3 from 10.9.  I migrated the iPhoto library to a Photo library almost immediately after upgrade.  I am seeing the following behaviors occur 6 or more hours after the migration completed:

Thumbnails display as blank white rectangles for some photos in the library, including some taken last year.
Double-clicking on those thumbnails to open the photo will open the photo for viewing with some of them, for others, it will display a only the blank white background of the interface.

Do I need to be patient and allow Photo to index all the photos, thereby rebuilding the thumbnails, again?  Can I instruct Photos to regenerate thumbnails again?  I tried Command+Option and opening Photos, but that just repairs the library.  I have read that does not regenerate the thumbnails.  Any suggestions are appreciated.

In this case, the issue turned out to be caused by missing photos.  I discovered this when rebuilding the thumbnails on the unmigrated library using iPhoto.

This does not appear to be caused by any issue with iPhoto or Photos.  It may have been caused by other software or file system corruption.

The correct solution is here:
http://www.igeeksblog.com/iphoto-thumbnail-not-showing-up-in-mac-os-x/


How to get list of all Wi-Fi networks available in iPhone 5 My laptop is showing 4-5 wifi networks available in my area. But my iPhone is just showing 1-2 wifi networks. Even when I'm trying to add/search manually, then it is showing error couldn't find network. Anyone have any idea why?

Download the Airport Utility app from the app store and then in the settings app enable Wi-Fi Scanner.

You get a searchable list and export capabilities of the results. Once you have a scan, you can post those results in a new thread to ask what to do in your situation once you have concrete data.

The thing about the iphones is that it can only get wifi a very short radius from the location(about 10 feet). So try moving your phone to a stonger location of your wifi so that you can access it.


How to control fan speed in macOS Sierra? After replacing the hard drive in my 2009 iMac 27", I noticed that the hard drive fan spins at maximum speed since the sensor cable is not plugged in. (The new SSD drive doesn't support it)

To solve this issue, I installed a software called "Macs Fan Control" that can read out the temperature from the SMART status of the drive and control the fan speed itself.

This was a near-perfect solution until I upgrade my system to macOS Sierra. Now both "Macs Fan Control" and also "smcFanControl" can't control the fans anymore and the latter reports that I am running it on an unsupported system.

Now my question is, can I somehow control the fan speed manually using Terminal etc. or do I have to "trick" the sensor hardware-wise?

I am a firm believer in avoiding software "hacks" to fix hardware issues.  To fix this problem, you need the sensor.  Unfortunately, as you have found out, your SSD doesn't support this connection.

However, OWC makes an digital inline temperature sensor.  Basically, it goes between the SATA power cable and the SATA power connector of your HDD/SSD.  The temp sensor goes on your drive.

The best part about this is that it's a "once-and-done" solution meaning future OS upgrades won't be susceptible to software incompatibility problems like you are experiencing now.

C|Net did an article on this exact problem and a review of this solution.

You need to short the sensor plug cables. This is how people normally do it. Just pull the plug off the end and then strip the wires, twist them together, and use electrical tape or similar to protect them from the rest of the computer.


Reduce the size of photo sent with Messages.app on iPhone When using Apple’s Mail.app, a mail message offers a pop-up menu to reduce the size of an enclosed image.

➥ How can I do the same when shooting and sending photos from within Messages.app on an iPhone?

Currently my iPhone sends out huge 3.3 meg files where 120K would do.

I cannot comment on popup asking for file size, but in Messages settings, Low image quality mode can be turned on. See last option in Settings -> messages It will be set for all images.

Are you using the built-in (it's typically on by default, at least it has been through most recent iterations of iOS, I'm assuming that it probably still is today) Photos app integration with iCloud?  The one where it uses your iCloud storage space to back up all your photos automatically, with the choice of whether or not you want to use a feature called "My Photo Stream"...if you use this, then by default most of the time your photos should actually already be a compressed version that is of less quality versus the original image file.  If you select the photo(s) from within the "Photos" app and use the share extension (that little square with the arrow pointing upwards out of the top, on the bottom bar of the screen) to copy/paste them into the body of your outbound e-Mails, or drag-and-drop them, it should send out the ones that your phone is automatically optimizing and not the full-sized ones.

Alternatively, you can try this app (it's totally free and there's no annoying premium things to pay for unlocking features or removing a watermark or anything like that, and no subscription nonsense), it's called Kompressor.  I have used it for a while with good results, it's simple but it works.  I choose to use it because it seems that by default when selecting the images through the 'attach items' option within Mail, it sends a request to the iCloud servers to download the full-sized version of the photo to send it to your recipient.  Here's the link to the app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kompressor-compress-images/id1011979611

Note: you can tell whether or not the image(s) you have in your photo albums are in fact currently existing in their original, full-size versions or if they are in an optimized smaller file by looking for the presence of the little cloud icon in the bottom corner of the image when going through them in the album gallery.


Where do I find my user folder in the OS X folder hierarchy? In Terminal, how do I go from Macintosh HD to places such as johnsmith that contains Downloads, Desktop etc. In a Finder window, it seems they are independent of each other.

From Macintosh HD, I see Library, Applications etc. but under User I couldn't find johnsmith.

The Mac file tree is rather confusing for a Windows user like me who are used to "My Computer" then all files are managed by root drives and folders.
What is consider as root on my Mac? Is it Macintosh HD or johnsmith? It is possible to do a partition on Mac like that on Windoes?

You can find the location to your home directory by looking in the "Users & Groups" System  Preference pane.

Open "System Preferences" application
Click "Users & Groups"
Click the padlock to unlock it, if it is not already unlocked. Enter user name and password for an Admin user.
Right click on the User name you want to find the home directory for, select "Advanced Options..."
Observe the path as noted next to "Home directory:"

Now, once you see where OS X thinks your home folder is located then you can work on un hiding it if it is not showing up where it is suppose to be.

Make sure its name does not start with ".", Additionally you can use the SetFile -a v /pathToHome command to make it visible if it appears to be hidden for no apparent reason.

Very easy solution:

In "Finder", choose "Preferences". Click on the "Sidebar" tab, and under the "Favorites" column, there should be your user name (usually your name: "firstlast"). Check the box. Now when you open finder, you should see your user name, and when you click on it, you will see the directory of all your files. :-)


Reinstall OS X due to compromised OS X partition whilst keeping Boot Camp I have an iMac with OS X and Windows 7 dual boot (which was installed via Boot Camp). Recently, the OS X partition has been compromised, but the Windows one works great. I have created a bootable USB with OS X Snow Leopard and I want to reinstall OS X. I have 2 questions: Will I lose any personal data after reinstalling OS X? And will Windows 7 still work after reinstalling OS X considering that it has been installed through Boot Camp?

You can reinstall your Mac OS. It will not loss your data which stored in your partition until you not format your drive. For reinstalling your Mac Os no need to format drive, just install new Mac Os into same partition and it will overwrite it. For that i am sure.

But regarding Boot Camp - window OS, i am not sure as i have not used boot camp for dual boot. I am aware of it. I think it will work. But make sure before go with it.


Is there a button in iTunes to say "Stop after playing this song"? Because I might just want to go to bed after this one song (but don't want to stop it midway – It's a classic).

Edit: Found a workaround in iTunes 11, a two-click solution but it works. See my answer.

iTunes 11

Click on the Up Next button and press clear. It will stop after the current song regardless where you start the song from.

iTunes 12

"Clear" is at the end of the Up Next list, rather than the top, so you'll have to take the extra step of scrolling to the bottom.

Just make a playlist with the one song and that's all it will play.


Is it possible to find out an app download / installation date on iOS? Is there a way to find out the exact date of installation of an application that was added to my phone?

On iPhone (iOS 11.0.3):
Settings > iTunes & App Store: Apple ID: View Apple ID > Purchase History -- tap "Last 90 Days" to expand view to include previous years.

Shows free and paid purchases by date.

If it is a game you can go to Game Center to find out the download date.


Use unsupported USB footswitch? I am attempting to use this footswitch:

http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/input/008/usbfootswitch_detail.html

They only support windows, and USB Overdrive apparently doesn't support it either.

I want to use it to click the mouse in OSX.

Is there a software that will allow this configuration?

Runs the setup software under Windows. The pedal stores the settings itself.


Can MacBooks run without a battery? I have a MacBook Pro (2008). It is a secondary computer I rarely use, so it was easy to last that long with it.

Such a long lasting service turned me into an adept of Apple quality. I am looking forward to buy a new one except... nowadays the battery is harder to remove.

My concern is not "a replaceable battery", it is more of "a removable battery". As soon as the battery dies, I would like to keep using the laptop with a power cord. However I've seen all my batteries swelling and/or getting extremely hot. I might be paranoid, but in those cases I just wanted to remove the battery and keep using a good enough laptop.

Is this possible with new MacBooks? Can they work without a battery attached? Or can their batteries be ignored once they expire?

It is well-known that any MacBook with battery removed will run at significantly lower clock speed, typically around 1 GHz. The reason is that the power supply is good enough to supply plenty of power for the average usage, but not for bursts. If your hard drive spins up while the CD drive spins up while all cores and the GPU work full blast and you are charging two iPhones then the power supply won't have enough power for that, but it can take extra power from the battery.

With no battery, the MacBook will turn its power consumption down so that it can guarantee to always have enough power, because otherwise you would have instant crashes at the wrong times.

Another reason to not remove the battery is that dust will have a chance to get deeper inside your MacBook that would otherwise be blocked by the battery. So unless your battery is swollen, leave it in, even if it only has ten minutes charge left.

Macbooks without battery work slower than with battery and with new ones you can't replace them because they're glued in so you will need new laptop.


Writing AppleScript to change a TextEdit document from .rtfd file to .rtf I am using TextEdit and need the document to save as a .rtf, but when I am copying and pasting the data over, since there are small images and thumbnails, it will always save as .rtfd.

I am currently going through the process of doing this manually, but when dealing with 50+ documents, going into the Get Info area, setting the proper extension, then saving that file again takes time. I do not need the images to be there, but going through and removing manually is also not a good option.

I am currently trying to learn AppleScript and using Script Editor, but wanted to see if in the meantime anyone had any ideas here or have a script that does this?

The @user3439894 comment provides a better solution but since this is tagged as applescript, here is an applescript answer.

Will prompt user to choose one or more rtfd, copy them to the desktop, turn them into actual folders, extract each one's text/rtf component to the desktop, and trash the unwanted bits. I don't know how you actually get the target files so I went with 'choose' and stuck to using the desktop as the workplace.

use scripting additions
-- Choose one or more rtfd
set aFilList to {}
set aFilList to (choose file with multiple selections allowed)
tell application "Finder"

    repeat with aFil in aFilList

        -- copy rtfd to desktop; collect name information
        set dFil to duplicate aFil to (path to desktop folder)
        set {adNam, ddNam, dwXt} to {displayed name of aFil, displayed name of dFil, ".rtf"}
        --> {"filename", "filename 2", ".rtf"}, or {"filename", "filename copy", ".rtf"}

        -- Remove 'd' from extension to reveal as type:folder
        set name of dFil to ddNam & dwXt
        set dFil to ((path to desktop) & ddNam & dwXt as text)

        -- Move rtf to desktop and rename; trash intermediary files
        move file "TXT.rtf" of alias dFil to (path to desktop) with replacing
        set oFil to (path to desktop) & "TXT.rtf" as text
        set name of alias oFil to (adNam & dwXt)
        delete aFil
        delete dFil

    end repeat
end tell

For a single document, unless there's formatting you want to preserve, the easiest way is to first save it as a plan text document, then re-save it as an RTF. Or first paste the selection into BBEdit then Select All, Copy, and Paste into TextEdit.

If there is formatting you want to save, and there are only a few icons or other objects, just delete them and then save as RTF.