Creating a folder with one icon in iOS 4 Is it possible to create a folder containing a single icon? I guess you could drag one icon onto another, then remove the second one, but is there a more "elegant" solution?

You describe the only way to achieve this.

Create a folder by dragging one app on top of another, then drag one of them out of the folder again. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

Press any app icon until all of your icons jiggle. Drag any icon on top of the one you want to keep in the folder. If you want to name the folder do it now (see the word FOLDER at the top of the screen > on the right edge of that bar tap the tiny X to delete the word FOLDER > type in the name of your choice). Push the Home button to stop the jiggling. Now again press any icon until they all the icons jiggle. Drag the icon you do NOT want to keep in the folder to somewhere else on the screen. Push the Home button. Now you should have a folder with whatever you named it, and only the one icon you want inside that folder. (If you want to name or rename the folder later, push any icon until all the icons jiggle. Tap the folder you want to name. Tap the bar where it has the name or it says FOLDER. Tap the tiny X on the right side of the bar. Type the name of your choice. Push the Home button to stop the jiggling.


Replaced external monitor not recognized MBP 13" Retina I was successfully running two external monitors (not Apple Thunderbolt) from my 2015 MBP 13". They were both connected to the left side thunderbolt ports via HDMI to Thunderbolt cables. No problems.

I replaced one of the monitors and now both are the exact same monitor (ACER R240HY). The new one is not recognized. Cables are fine, when I swap thunderbolt ports the new monitor is recognized.

Cleared NVRAM, PRAM, and SMC. Didn't work.

Tried unplugging monitors and booting up with cables in first then plugging in monitor. Didn't work.

Searched and read threads for over an hour so asking here.

Thanks for any help!

Update per request:

Old/replaced monitor (Viewsonic) works in either port by itself
New replacement monitor works in only 1 port either by itself or with the original.
Original monitor works in only 1 port either by itself or
with the replacement.

In other words, both ports work, all monitors work, all cables work, but the replacement monitor is just not recognized in one of the ports (but it is recognized in the other.)

SPECS
Original Two Monitors that worked
ACER R240HY - using HDMI to Thunderbolt Cable
Viewsonic VA2455 - using HDMI to DVI/Thunderbolt adapter

Replacement monitor
ACER R240HY - using HDMI to Thunderbolt Cable

So you're not connecting them exactly the same. You're using two adapters on the Viewsonic (an HDMI-DVI cable and an HDMI-Mini DisplayPort cable daisy-chained together) and one on the old Acer. Now you're trying to connect two via HDMI-Mini DisplayPort cables.

I would suggest trying to connect one of your Acer monitors using a normal HDMI cable to the HDMI port on the right side of the MacBook and the other to the left Thunderbolt port using the HDMI-Mini DisplayPort adapter.

There were two solutions. One utilized the HDMI port on the opposite side of the laptop with an DVI to HDMI cable. But I wanted to use the same two Thunderbolt ports so I used a DVI to DVI cable and a DVI to Thunderbolt adapter.


Create a bootable USB with Windows installer for Yosemite? I'm having trouble creating a bootable USB for my mac.
I have an iMac, and I'm wanting to install a copy of Windows Server 2008 x86 onto it. I've tried BootCamp, but I'm getting errors when selecting the ISO because it is "not Windows 7 or later".

Does anyone have any idea how I could create a USB that I can boot on my Mac, with my Windows Server 2008 ISO?

Here is how to burn a bootable USB stick (taken from the Ubuntu website):

Open the Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities/ or query Terminal in Spotlight).
Convert the .iso file to .img using the convert option of hdiutil e.g., hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ~/path/to/target.img ~/path/to/windows.iso
Note: OS X tends to put the .dmg ending on the output file automatically.
Run diskutil list to get the current list of devices.
Insert your flash media.
Run diskutil list again and determine the new device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2).
Run diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN (replace N with the disk number from the last command; in the previous example, N would be 2).
Execute sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m (replace /path/to/downloaded.img with the path where the image file is located; for example, ./windows.img or ./ubuntu.dmg). Using /dev/rdisk instead of /dev/disk may be faster. If you see the error dd: Invalid number '1m', you are using GNU dd. Use the same command but replace bs=1m with bs=1M. If you see the error dd: /dev/diskN: Resource busy, make sure the disk is not in use. Start the 'Disk Utility.app' and unmount (don't eject) the drive.
Run diskutil eject /dev/diskN and remove your flash media when the command completes.
Restart your Mac and press alt/option key while the Mac is restarting to choose the USB stick.

According to the Ubuntu site, you can do the following:

Launch Disk Utility (Applications → Utilities → Disk Utility).
Insert your blank CD/DVD. Drag and drop your .iso file to the left pane in Disk Utility. Now both the blank disc and the .iso should be listed.
Select the .iso file, and click on the Burn button in the
toolbar.

Ensure that the "Verify burned data" checkbox is ticked (you may need to click on the disclosure triangle to see the checkbox).
Click on Burn. The data will be burned and verified.


New user owns old apps in Mac I just created a second user in my computer so guests can use my Mac without the need of using my account. I did this through the GUI (Settings → Users → New User).

While trying to set up permissions and restrictions. I can see that this new user is shown as owner of some of the Applications in my Mac.

Why is this happening?
Should it be happening at all?
Is this Unix related, or macOS related?

Apps that are dragged into the /Applications folder by a user will be owned by that user - e.g. the Unix owner attribute will be that of the user that did the dragging. Apps from the Mac App Store and apps that were delivered via an installer package tend to have root as their owner.

drwxrwxr-x@  13 root  admin    416 28 Nov  2012 Adobe Photoshop CS6
drwxr-xr-x    3 root  wheel     96  8 Oct 12:31 Affinity Designer.app
drwxr-xr-x    3 root  wheel     96  8 Oct 12:31 Affinity Photo.app
drwxr-xr-x    3 Ben   admin     96 31 Oct 13:03 Affinity Publisher.app
drwxr-xr-x@   3 root  wheel     96 23 Jul  2019 App Store.app
drwxr-xr-x    3 Ben   staff     96  3 Oct  2012 Art Directors Toolkit 5i.app

The apps here with owner "Ben" were downloaded and dragged into the /Applications folder. The root-owned apps are OS-bundled, from the Mac App Store, or installed via a .pkg.

The group varies, but is largely irrelevant.

Should it be happening at all?

No. Creating a new user account should not change the ownership of these apps.

Is this Unix related, or macOS related?

MacOS is Unix™. But yes, it's happening at the Unix/POSIX level of file attributes.

Why is this happening?

Without more information, this is unknown.
The only reason I can think of relates to User ID numbers. Every user has a unique ID number. The first user created is number 501. Subsequent accounts will be numbered 502, 503, etc.

It may be that the original account used to move these apps to the /Applications folder was deleted, and the new user account has been given the same user ID number, thus inheriting its ownerships.

You can determine the UID of a user with id -u <username>.

As long as the app has the read and execute flags set for all users, then everyone can launch the app. The ownership only matters for deleting the app.

Obviously, you should set up the new user so that it can't "manage your computer."

And I would go on to say that "the account which you use every day" should not be able to do that, either.

Nevertheless, users do not "own" applications.


OSX utility for copy/pasting a text file in a FIFO queue fashion There are a few similar questions regarding "clipboard managers" but nothing that quite suits my needs.

I often end up with an unformatted list of text that needs entering into various form fields. I'm looking for a utility that makes the clipboard act like a FIFO queue using a pre-defined text file of this nature.

Say I have a text file with 30 names

Adam
Alice
...
Will
Zara

I'd like to be able to paste this list into the clipboard manager. I'd then switch to the form, click the first box, press a hotkey and the first item would be "popped" from the list and pasted into the box. I'd then click the second box, press the hotkey again and the next name would be popped and pasted.

As a bonus, it would also be cool if I could do the reverse: click an item, press a hotkey and it's appended to a text file (or a list that can be easily exported as an unformatted text file). I've seen that lots of these other tools can build a list within the app itself, but I really need the output to be in a text file to use for other purposes.

The closest I have seen to these requirements is Flycut (free on the App Store)

It's extremely simple to use, though it won't automatically pop an item off the stack then move to the next one.

However, when you invoke Flycut (assuming you are starting at the top of the stack), you can just press the down arrow key ↓ to go to the next item.  When you release, it pastes what is in queue.

So, your sequence of keystrokes would be:

First:  ⇧ Shift ⌘ Command V

Second: ⇧ Shift ⌘ Command V then ↓

and so on...

I have the same exact use case, but haven't found a good app.

I found an ok solution with Flycut:

Copy your strings in reverse order.
Paste twice: ⇧ Shift ⌘ Command V, ⇧ Shift ⌘ Command V


Dock is not working anymore All of a sudden some running applications were not shown on the ⌘+⇥ on-screen list. I had to restart my MBP, running Yosemite 10.10.2.

After restarting, ⌘+⇥ was not working any more (no app shown on screen, not even the Finder) and the Dock showed some non-running apps as running (with the circle). By clicking any 'running' app the circle disappeared.

So I opened Terminal and run killall Dock.

The Dock did not restart.
⌘+⇥ is still not working.
Restart does not work.
Shut-down does not work.
Spotlight works and I can launch apps.

No apps were installed between the normal, working stage and this absurd state.

What's the problem? Any suggestion?

Try re-applying the 10.10.2 update, or download and install the 10.10.3 combo update and see if that fixes it.
Here's the link to the combo updater:

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1804?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US


MacBook HD "Other" all of a sudden almost full As you can see in the below image, my HD "Other" category is almost full. A couple of days ago, I randomly kept getting a popup saying that my disk was almost full. Then I went in and noticed the issue in the image. I ran the repair disk utility and got all my software up to date, to no avail. Haven't found any help on Google. Any ideas?

Not sure whether you've already found this, but there are a number of other people having the same issue on the Apple Discussion Groups. There seems to be quite a lot of good information in that thread so I recommend reading it through, but the consensus seems to be that its hidden local backups/snapshots that's causing it.

A few people also used DaisyDisk to find, then delete, hidden space on the hard disk.

I know this is thread is old, but I was experiencing the same problem on my Macbook Pro on El Capitan. Using OmniDiskSweeper was awesome but I found the high quality transcoded media files from Final Cut Pro X were massive, so I did a huge project clean up and it gave me an extra 200gb of free space.


MacBookPro Migration - All File Corrupted and actually they are not I switched from an older MacBook Pro to a newer unit. It runs macOS High Sierra V10.13. All files were migrated using the Migration Assistance app. Within one night all files and software were transferred. Now everything is fine, except for files - every file I double-click to open states "file-abc.zip" is corrupted and can not be opened. It's recommended to put this file into trash.

This happens on every single file there is. All kind of formats (zip, jpeg, xlsx,....). Every time I get the same error message.

However, I can just open the files if I open the software first (let's say MS Excel) and select "Open file" from context menu and select a file. Now it will open just as it should. If I  double-click the file in Finder will result in this error message.

Whats wrong here? It seems the files are all fine, just my MBP is a bit confused? How can I get this straight?

Bonus info: If I download files from web (Firefox/Chrome) the files are corrupted as well. If I create the file myself (with a software by saving it to disk) it can be opened with double click.

/update:

Some more strange behavior I found on this macbook. In settings "security" I can change the 'allow applications downloaded from' to "verified sources" ('anywhere' is not available at all) but when I jump back to main settings and again to this security it is changed back to "App Store". It doesn't saves my setting!

I found the solution to this error (btw. the error message is "____ file is damaged and can't be opened. You should put it to trashbin."):

The gatekeeper function on Sierra is a bit altered and the last option "From any source" is not available for security settings. So I had to run this command in terminal:

sudo spctl --master-disable

Now the option "from any source" is available for gatekeeper. After I selected this option the files became available again.

I had a similar problem.  Apple had me re-install High Sierra, which fixed the problem.


how to disable birthday reminders in iOS and still view them in the calendar app? Birthday reminders are nice but not if they keep popping up each day for every contact that has a birthday filled in.
I don't need a popup birthday reminder. Especially not for every contact that has a birthday. I don't want to edit all contacts that I do or don't want to be notified about. Seeing them in the calendar app will be enough for me.

For this reason I decided to just turn the birthday notifications off.

One way of doing this is to disable calendar notifications. But that sucks... now all calendar notifications are turned off...

An other option would be to disable calendar birthday events but somehow I still get the annoying reminders popping up each day. ( And with me some others according to some forms I've read ) And this also disables viewing them in the calendar app.

Then I read this:

  Go to Settings/Mail, Contacts, Calendars then Calendars section: Default Alert Times/Birthdays. Switch it to None.

I will know by tomorrow if the 'trick' above worked but since I didn't find any q/a how to disable all birthday reminders easily I posted this here in hope to find a good answer that will fix this problem once and for all. Maybe I found an answer but if you could confirm it that would be great!

Originaly asked the question for iOS 6, but this still is a valid question for later iOS versions ( v10 at the moment of editing )

Yes. This should work. As you are aware, when you (or the Facebook contact) inputs their birthday into the contact, iOS creates a new calendar called "Birthdays". On both iOS and OSX you have control over the notifications that you receive for each birthday that is on that calendar.

Like you said you could can go and turn of the notifications which should prevent notifications from actually appearing. Note, however that the birthdays should still show in Notification Center.

You can also disable the Birthday calendar on your iOS device altogether by opening the Calendar.app, tapping "Calendars" in the upper left corner, and scrolling down to and tapping on "Birthdays". You will see the check mark next to it disappear and the birthdays will no longer show in your calendar.

It, of course, would be easy to turn them back on temporarily in the future if you wanted to look up someone's birthday.

Mine is set to None there, and birthdays unchecked for a calendar, and I still get notifications on my iMac. They have to be coming from Facebook somehow...


How to edit the /etc/hosts file? When I open the file with TextEdit (I don't want (truly, I am not able) to use vim), it is seen as "locked", even if I modify the permissions of the file via the "Get Info" window.

How can I modify the hosts file with TextEdit?

In one line, from Terminal:

sudo -b "/Applications/Textedit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit" /etc/hosts

Make your changes, save and close.

I am in HighSierra, and I remember well from Lion and later until including HighSierra that you select "Hosts" and open it with Textedit without any ado.


Last Opened not clickable in Applications folder View Options I’m trying to sort my applications by Last Opened column, but the option is not clickable (is grayed out) in the view options (⌘+J) panel (see image below).

Why and how can I fix this?

(I’m on Snow Leopard 10.6.8)

Date last opened was only available in Spotlight windows in 10.6 and earlier. It became available in normal Finder windows in 10.7.

http://www.mac-help.com/t205135-does-snow-leopard-have-last-opened.html

    One thing that's always annoyed me about Leopard is that the search
    results window has a Last Opened column, but an ordinary Finder window
    doesn't have that option.

    Of course, it also annoys me that the search results window is not an
    ordinary Finder window like it used to be, with Size, Created and all
    the other column options.

    Has Snow Leopard fixed this inconsistency?

  In list view 'Last Opened' is one of the options in Show View Options,
  but it's rather annoyingly greyed out.

  So: Yes, but no.

Requires a little bit of fiddling about but pretty simple to fix, check out:
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2009083113534843


How to group Adobe CS5 application tabs in one window (like the Windows version)? On Windows (7) my Adobe products have all their tabs and tab groups in the same window.
On Mac (OS X Lion) my Adobe products have all their tabs and tab groups separated floated every which way.
Is there a way on the Mac to group all these tabs like on the Windows machine?
See the different windows flung about the desktop:

(source: staticflickr.com)
I am using Adobe CS5.
Apparently I am not the only one complaining about this:
http://blogs.adobe.com/dreamweaver/2010/04/dreamweaver_cs5_help_now_avail.html

I only have CS6, and, in that version, I'd make sure Window > Application Frame was checked. This moves everything (documents, palettes, etc.) into one window frame like the Windows version.

For CS5, go to the "Window" tabs and scroll down to and click on "Application Frame". Everything should group into a window.


IPhone Frozen basic reset not working My iPhone has frozen on the slide to unlock screen.

I cannot turn it off or reset it.

The device turns off every minute and restarts to change the time.

Is there a way to stop it?

I have tried to restore using iTunes and this message pops up,

I have gone through the 'more information' on the apple website

Plug it in to USB power or a mac and hold the home button as it enters the reboot cycle. It should show the dock connector and iTunes screen. From there you don't need to restore the device (erasing everything) but can connect to iTunes and try powering off and rebooting with it connected to the iTunes can often help break out of a minor software issue.

Update added to most appropriate answer.

I went to the Apple store and they were able to run diagnostics on the phone, from there they were able to restore.

Had the solution for my problem from www.sarnatconsulting.be , read the article in the info tab. Worked well.

The solution is to connect your device to another PCM with a fresh installation of iTunes and reproces the IOS 6 import. After the you can continue the restore of the apps on the old pc


How can I create a symbolic link in Terminal? What command is used to create a symbolic link/soft link?

┌── ln(1) link, ln -- make links
│   ┌── Create a symbolic link.
│   │                         ┌── the optional path to the intended symlink
│   │                         │   if omitted, symlink is in . named as destination
│   │                         │   can use . or ~ or other relative paths
│   │                   ┌─────┴────────┐
ln -s /path/to/original /path/to/symlink
      └───────┬───────┘
              └── the path to the original file/folder
                  can use . or ~ or other relative paths

$ echo content > original
$ ln -s original symlink
$ ls -la original symlink
-rw-r--r--  1 grgarside  staff    8 28 Jan 18:44 original
lrwxr-xr-x  1 grgarside  staff    8 28 Jan 18:44 symlink -> original
$ cat symlink
content

For more information about ln(1) see the man page.

The path to the symlink is optional; if omitted, ln defaults to making a link with the same name as the destination, in the current directory:

$ cd ~/Documents
$ ln -s ../Pictures
$ ls -l Pictures
lrwxr-xr-x  1 user  staff  11 Feb  1 17:05 Pictures -> ../Pictures

To create a symlink to replace a system directory (e.g. if you want to have /Users pointing to another disk drive), you need to disable System Integrity Protection. You can re-enable it after the symlink is set up.

As a heads up to anyone, you must use full path names. This wasn't immediately clear to me, as I felt I could symlink relative paths in a folder that I was running the command inside. I could be wrong (I'm a macOS novice).
For example, if I try to symlink my Pictures folder inside of my Downloads folder, while cd'd in my user home directory, this will not work:
Users\stevebauman >_ ln -s Pictures Downloads

Instead, you must use:
Users\stevebauman >_ ln -s /Users/stevebauman/Pictures /Users/stevebauman/Downloads


In Terminal I cannot type lowercase e If I open a Terminal window and I type the letter "e" (without quotes of course) it beeps and will not type the letter.  Every other letter works just fine in Terminal. Uppercase E works too.  Just the lowercase e doesn't.

In every other app on my computer lowercase e works without issue, so it's not a keyboard issue.

This started sometime in the last week.  I use Terminal a lot in my job and never has this been an issue.  I have rebooted (did not fix).  I have reset terminal (did not fix).

Since I do not know the exact date when this started, I am not sure if I made any changes or installed software.  I am trying to remove anything I have installed recently.

FYI I have tried to use the 3rd party iTerm2 and it does the same thing.

ALSO - if I paste in something with a lower e, it does same thing - will not take it.  It has to be some terminal bash config issue I would think.

In fact, I copied the following sense and then I pasted it in Terminal. What appears?  sns and you can hear two beeps.

Also - in case it is unclear - this happens with the built-in keyboard on the MBP as well as an external keyboard.  Based on that and the pasting issue, I do not think this is a physical keyboard issue in any way.

Specs: 2015 MacBook Pro, fully up to date OS X

Let's debug it.

Change shells and try again. (Credit to @Kent) In terminal:

$(which zsh)

Comment out all lines in .bash_profile, .bashrc, etc. and open a new terminal tab/window. If this resolves the issue, something being loaded into the shell environment is consuming the letter e for reasons that science may never be able to explain.
Try cating a file that contains the letter e to see if it will even display: (Credit to @techraf)

Open a text editor (not terminal)
Enter some text with a few es and save file (foo.txt?)
In terminal, cat the file:

cd /path/to/folder; cat foo.txt

If es render then the terminal can handle it, if not, then this is super weird.

Try applescript. (Credit to @ALX)

Open Applescript editor
Create Applescript file with these contents:

delay 10
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "e"

Execute the script file and then quickly navigate to the terminal window. In a few seconds it will virtually press the e key and hopefully show up in your terminal. This would indicate that there could be an input/device driver issue (though I am clueless as to what that might be)

I'm not going to lie, I am absolutely fascinated by this issue and cannot wait to learn what the cause is. It's not hardware because it works in other applications, which means it's software and I cannot imagine who would swallow the letter e with code.

Just delete .inputrc file, it's in root directory. (It's a hidden file).


How can I extend the lock screen timeout in iOS? This question is applicable to both iPads and iPhones: how do I extend the lock screen timeout? By that I mean the time from when I see the "slide to unlock" message to when the screen goes black again. Right now when I press a button to wake my device up, I have about four or five seconds to slide the screen to unlock, before it just goes dark again. I would like to extend this timeout if possible. How do I do it?

Without jailbreaking your iPhone there Is no option to change that.

iOS settings > general > Battery > low power mode > off

iOS settings > general > Auto lock


Is there a keyboard shortcut to bring up Finder? Is there a default keyboard shortcut to start a new Finder window?
If not, is there a way to assign one?

I tried System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > App Shortcuts and created a new item for Finder, and assigned shift-command ⌘-F, among other things, but nothing worked.

It's actually easy. On Yosemite, just press option ⌥+command ⌘+spacebar. That will open a new Smart Finder window. You then can navigate from there. It works on a system level no matter what application you're running.

No need for scripts or complicated setups.

Turn this option on in System Preferences > keyboard > shortcuts > spotlight > "show finder search window" in recent versions. This can be mapped to other keys too, but it can cause conflicts in other apps that might be using your desired shortcut.

COMMAND + SPACE + F (if you know what i mean!)


Can you export or share Categories in Outlook 2011? Is there any way to export or otherwise copy Categories, with colors, between Users/Macs?  They also don't yet synch to Exchange 2010, from what I can tell.

I'll likely develop a default new user profile and then run an AppleScript to add the Exchange account based on the currently logged in user's credentials, so I can set up defaults that way, hoping that there's a way to export or copy categories however.

Sadly, and unfortunatly No. This is something I spend a few days on recently, and out of interest, it can't be done on the Windows version either. There is no way to keep these categories intact, and it can be a huge problem, especially when sharing items with others since the minute they make a change to a shared item, the categories are overwritten.

You could possibly however use an AppleScript to add them manually, I haven't tried thought.

we had the same problem. That's why we created the Exchange Category Exporter, which enables you to export contacts based on their given category. For more detailed information check our website at http://software.studio-istanbul.net

If you would like to receive a promotional code just drop me an email and I ll send you one.

Sincerely,

Wolfgang


sshd: Service exited with abnormal code: 255 Every SSH connection exits with an abnormal code.

For example

ssh corti@myhost.example.com true

results in

Feb 11 10:16:47 mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.openssh.sshd.163F2BE0-40C6-4B17-AB4E-5A0A07A524DE): Service instances do not support events yet.
Feb 11 10:16:48 mac-mini.home sshd[35674]: Accepted publickey for corti from ***.***.***.*** port 65030 ssh2
Feb 11 10:16:48 mac-mini.home sshd[35676]: Received disconnect from ***.***.***.***: 11: disconnected by user
Feb 11 10:16:48 mac-mini com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.openssh.sshd.163F2BE0-40C6-4B17-AB4E-5A0A07A524DE[35674]): Service exited with abnormal code: 255

Why is sshd exiting with a non zero return value (i.e., 225)?

In recent macOS versions, the rotten fruit geniuses have restricted SSH access to admin users only. I was having this 'service exited with abnormal code' issue and I fixed it by Preferences -> Sharing -> Remote Login: On and 'Allow Access to': All Users (or the users/groups you want). You must be an admin to do that (you must be able to unlock the locker icon on the bottom left).

Two hours wasted, damn idiots...

Make sure that your user corti has Remote Login feature enabled in Sharing Preferences.


Can I lock an external hard drive? I have two identical hard drives. One is the one I will keep updating frequently, the other will be a backup that I update less often.
In order to avoid confusion, I would like to "Lock" the second hard drive the same way you would lock a folder from its "Info" panel, here:

However, for drives, this option is not present:

Is there a simple, quick, Mac OS native way to make the drive locked to prevent mixing them up?
I tried to set permission to "Read Only" but it still allowed me to make changes on the drive (like move a folder inside another).

I have a disk image on a drive which is passworded.
Seems to work fine but whether it will suit you...
See https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.howtogeek.com/183826/how-to-create-an-encrypted-file-container-disk-image-on-a-mac/amp/


Keyboard shortcut for powering down MacBook Pro with Touch Bar? I received my new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar today and quickly realized that the shortcut ctrl+alt+cmd+power (documented here under 'Sleep, log out, and shut down shortcuts') no longer works for quitting all apps followed by shutting down.

Can this shortcut be reinstated or is it replaced by something similar?

In System Preferences → Mission Control

Change "Show Desktop" to F10
Change "Show Dashboard" to F11

In System Preferences → Keyboard, open App Shortcuts.

Click + to add a new shortcut.
Leave Application as "All Applications".
In Menu Title enter exactly this phrase (without quotation marks): "Shut Down…"
Click cursor in the Keyboard shortcut field, then on keyboard hold "fn" key then select "F12" on Touch Bar

Holding "fn" key and selecting "F12" on Touch Bar will bring up the shutdown prompt.
Holding "fn" key and selecting "F10" will show desktop, holding "F11" will show dashboard.

You can press down the Touch ID button just as you would a regular Power button.
And thus the Control + Command + Touch ID does work if you hold it for 5 seconds or so.


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

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

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

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

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

I use the dock keyboard for iPad on my Mac mini.   I plug the USB in and  everything works.   I charge my iPad with a regular adapter. I said no charge but it charges anyway; just left it plugged in.


What's the difference in range between Airport Express and Extreme? Walking in to a Apple premium reseller's store today I was told that there is no difference range-wise between Express (the June 2012 model) and Extreme.

True story?

Where can I get more detailed specs on the models? Apple's site isn't exactly thorough…

The Wireless specs are the same.

The Features of each one, however, are not. Here's a few differences:

Packaging (obviously)
USB connection: On Express, only printers work. On Extreme, Printers and External HDDs.
Airport Extreme is able to create two wireless networks (one regular, one guest). Apple site states it has a guest network.
Airport Express has a P2 connector for AirPlay audio.

NO.

LAN ports of both Airport Express and Airport Extreme are the same in speed, 1GMbps.


OS X change Admin user to Standard user with command line I would love to send a Unix command through ARD that will change a OS X admin user to a standard user. The only thing I found close is

sudo dscl . -delete /Groups/admin GroupMembership USERNAME

which does remove the user from the list of admins, but they are still listed as an admin in the user preference panel, and can still use their account to authenticate for admin privileges.

Just fought this battle, you can drop the dscl line and use the following;

Type the command
:

sudo dseditgroup -o edit -d UserName -t user admin

Where UserName is their actual AD username.

Berry

I have done the below command, it is working fine

sudo dseditgroup -o edit -d UserName -t user admin


Can I make mobile Safari open YouTube links in the browser? YouTube has a pretty decent mobile website, however any link to YouTube I see on the web always opens the link in the YouTube app, not there in the browser.

Is there a way to change that? It would be nice not to have to keep switching apps all the time. I checked in Settings and couldn't see anything. Echofon actually does it in its built in browser so I'm sure it must be possible.

Go to Settings > General > Restrictions and untick the Youtube button. After that Youtube links will open in Safari and the app icon will disappear from the home screen.


Prevent Spotlight from indexing external drive Sometimes I use an external drive with macOS on it. This is in conjunction to my current internal drive which also is running macOS.

I find it annoying that, whenever I search for something (such as an application) when I'm in either OS when the external drive is connected, I get results from both my external and internal drive. However, I am only interested in running the application from the drive I've booted off of.

I tried circumventing this issue while on my external drive by creating a Spotlight exception for internal drive. This prevented files and apps from my internal drive from showing up. However, this also prevents me from searching for files on my internal drive, when I'm booted off my internal drive! Clearly this is something that I don't want.

It seems as though the Spotlight exclusions are per drive, which is not ideal in this scenario.

Is there a way to make Spotlight index only the drive which is currently booted? In this way when I'm booted off my external drive I'll get results only from the external drive, and same with the internal drive.

You could have a script that runs at startup that employs the technique suggested in this post https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/91759/183505

When booting from DriveA (when you want to disable spotlight indexing for External DriveB) you could execute :

touch /Volumes/DriveB/.metadata_never_index

When booting from external DriveB and you want to re-enable spotlight perhaps you could have your startup script execute:

rm /Volumes/DriveB/.metadata_never_index

The linked post also lists other ways to programatically alter the spotlight exclusions.

Here are some ways to add a script that will launch at login : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6442364/running-script-upon-login-mac

Good luck!

Edit : Method using bash scripts and plist files

First create a startup script. I chose to create one at ~/script.sh

Make sure it's executable chmod +x ~/script.sh

Script for OS that wants to hide a drive from spotlight

#!/bin/bash
flagLocation="/Volumes/DriveToHide"
flagRemoved=".ney_the_index"  # a new name

# if flag exists rename it.
if [ -a "$flagLocation/.metadata_never_index" ]; then
    mv "$flagLocation/.metadata_never_index" "$flagLocation/$flagRemoved";
fi

Script on the OS that wants to index the drive

#!/bin/bash
flagLocation="/Volumes/DriveToHide"
flagRemoved=".ney_the_index"

if [ -a "$flagLocation/$flagRemoved" ]; then
    mv "$flagLocation/$flagRemoved" "$flagLocation/.metadata_never_index"
fi

if [ ! -a "$flagLocation/$flagRemoved" ] || [ ! -a "$flagLocation/.metadata_never_index" ] ; then
    touch "$flagLocation/.metadata_never_index"
fi

Create a plist file ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.loginscript.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
   <key>Label</key>
   <string>com.user.loginscript</string>
   <key>Program</key>
   <string>/Users/yourusername/script.sh</string>
   <key>RunAtLoad</key>
   <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Test it by loading and unloading it:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.loginscript.plist

Whereas the other answer is a good method to do it, it can inadvertently cause problems and may not be 100% reliable. A better method would be to use Alfred, as it is more flexible than Spotlight, on the external OS.


Did Apple degrade the accuracy of the iPhone 4S GPS compared to the iPhone 4 I have done some extensive testing of my iPhone 4S compared to my iPhone 4 and found GPS accuracy has suffered substantially.

I've been using the 4 for about a year, riding a bicycle on a 3 mile loop park road several times a week. Typically, I'll do about 6 laps or 18 miles. Using a great app called Cyclemeter, I save the track so I have a record of how fast and how far I rode. After I upgraded to the 4S I found the measured length of each lap varied widely and that ridiculously high speeds were being recorded.

Upon examination of the recorded track I find loops drawn out to points up to 100 feet from the actual course and back tracks heading the wrong direction. The net result is the iPhone 4S is off by around 20% on the measured distance from what I know it should be. Has anyone else looked carefully at their tracks and found similar results?

What is more likely: That I have a defective unit OR that Apple's elimination of a dedicated GPS chip means less accurate information?

My experience helping others with this problem seems to suggest a few things:

Apple's been monkeying around with power conservation by trying to give "good enough" positioning results while idling the GPS for longer periods and relying on cell tower and wifi positioning more.  Try turning off wifi for your next run to see if the GPS does better (and if your battery is drained more).
Application developers are decreasing the GPS resolution of their apps in order to have less impact on the battery due to user complaints.  Check to see if the app you use can be configured for GPS update frequency and ask the app developer what they suggest regarding your problem.
Both the iPhone 4 and 4S seem to suffer from GPS degradation after awhile that can be fixed by doing a refresh of the device - in other words sometimes it's a software issue that seems to fix itself after a hard reboot and system refresh.  For some people a hard reboot is sufficient, but others have indicated that only a refresh will work for them.  I think this started affecting some of my friend's phones around the beginning of last summer.  I've seen several of my friends have this issue, visit the store, have it refreshed and reset, and the problem disappear.  Now they do the refresh themselves with iTunes when it gets annoying.  I don't have information on whether this is tied to a particular version of iOS or not, but I have seen it on both the 4 and 4S.

Of course you could also be experiencing a hardware problem, but you might consider some of the above actions before completely blaming the hardware.

Also be aware that GPS requires good line of sight to the sky.  If you've changed your iOS device position recently, consider changing it back.  If you're wearing it, make sure your body isn't between the device and the sky, and that your perspiration isn't reaching the device.

The iPhone 4s contains a GLONASS chip, in addition to the GPS chip (at least for units sold in North America and Russia).  GLONASS is the Russian competitor to the GPS.  Theoretically, it should improve accuracy, since iPhone samples both chips, but I don't think that happened.  In my case, the GPS seems 3-4 seconds behind what I am doing.

I am guessing this is new to Apple and all the problems get fixed in the next update.


Safari not able to reproduce 8k video from youtube I'm trying to see the new 8k videos on Youtube with Safari but when I choose the 8k quality I get an error: an error occured, please try again later.

An example of video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChOhcHD8fBA&t

When I choose 4k works fine.

I'm using a Macbook Pro 15" with touchbar with Radeon Pro 460.

Any idea why this is happening? someone is able to see the video?

With Chrome you can play it. It looks like Safari is not compatible with 8k.


Can I get S.M.A.R.T. support on external hard drives? Disk Utility reports the S.M.A.R.T. Status as not verified for external disks, and by default Mac OS X only seems able to access S.M.A.R.T. information on internal hard drives.

Is there a way to get SMART information on external USB or Firewire hard disk?

Yes (maybe).

There's an open-source kernel driver OS-X-SAT-SMART-Driver for Mac OS X that will work for some USB and Firewire enclosures. It uses SAT (SCSI ATA Translation) to pass the SMART commands through to the hard drive, so only works if your enclosure supports SAT.

SAT isn't something enclosures seem to advertise support for, but the one I use (WD MyBook Studio Edition) happens to support it, so it works for me. It'll probably be quicker to test the software with your drive/enclosure, than to find out if SAT is supported in the specs.

There are satsmart drivers on github that work perfectly well for most (usb) disks.
Disconnect all external disks;
Install the satsmart driver;
restart the mac, connect the disks.
See and download from here: https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx/usb-drive-support


Weird removable drive I have a removable 16gig flash drive from lacie. Everytime i put it into a mac computer that hasn't used that drive before, the files that stood on the drive once but are already deleted from it show up in that computer's trash. I don't know why this is happening but it's annoying.

Thanks for the help!

On OSX, trashed files are located on the same device as where they where before.

The Trash bin on OSX shows the trashed files of every storage device that is connected to the Mac.

So you have to trash your files while your drive is connected.

I’ve had two LaCie drives internally melt with no warning; don’t put anything on that drive that’s of any value to you or not backed up on another drive made by a more reliable manufacturer.


How to do fresh install of Mountain Lion? My Mac is very slow.

My Mac is running OS X Mountain Lion after an upgrade from Lion.

How can I do a fresh install the OSX Mountain Lion, with a clean HDD (all of my documents deleted), so it feels like a new MacBook?

Back up your data.
Boot into the Recovery System by holding ⌘+R during early boot.
Select Disk Utility and format your drive where OS X and your files were stored on.
Quit Disk Utility and select "Install Mountain Lion".

How much RAM do you have. For Mountain Lion , you need 8 GB RAM.
Other thing, I would like to suggest you to clean your Mac, remove all system junks from your Mac and gain more free spaces. Still, if your Mac is slow then do fresh installation.


How to play audio in Safe Boot? I am having an issue recently which causes my MacBook Pro 2015, 15", to spontaneously (and randomly?) shut down.

These shut downs do not happen in Recovery Mode or Safe Boot.

Temporarily, before I am able to identify and fix the root cause, I would like to continue using my laptop.

I am actually very happy using Safe Boot for now, I can do almost everything I want to do.

However, I can't figure out how to enable audio output while in Safe Boot mode.

I know it's not really intended, so possible workarounds may be awkward, but how can I hear the sound output from my MacBook while it is in Safe Boot?

The only external speakers I have access to are my iPhone 7's (iOS 13.3) and lots of pairs of headphones (although idk if those count as "external speakers"). I added this information because I wonder if it's possible to stream the sound output through my iPhone perhaps (network connectivity seems to work fine while in Safe Boot), if it is indeed impossible to play audio on the MacBook while in Safe Boot.

I have the exact same problem with my 15" mid-2010 MacBook Pro.  It does not suddenly reboot when in Safe Boot-- only in the normal boot.  Apple is aware of this problem but will not assign even one engineer to look into this problem as I have been complaining to them for over 6 years about this.
I was told that possibly the battery needs to be changed-  but Apple stopped making batteries for this model years ago.
So, theonlygusti, if you change the battery and it works properly or not, please let me know. I'll be very appreciative.


Why can't I access all commands in recovery mode? When I'm trying to run terminal commands in recovery mode on my MacBook Pro, most commands just won't work even if I'm root (the last character of the default(PS1) prompt is a '#').
So why is this and can I fix it?

The recovery partition is a bare-bones version of macOS which can be used as for various things, such as installing macOS again or disable SIP (system integrity protection). To keep the recovery partition small, Apple decided to not include all CLI tools that are available in macOS.

For security reasons, not every user is able to access all files. The root user should be able to access all files and run all programs. It's a permission issue. However, he's not able to run programs that don't even exist on the recovery partition, so changing the user to root won't help you.

If you do want to use those programs, you shouldn't be using the recovery partition anyways but boot a standard macOS partition.

If you run into the issue again.  Put your MBP into TARGET DISK MODE by holding down T and powering the computer on. Use Firewire to a machine that only needs to be a mac of some sort. When you connect the host computer you will see your MBP show up as an external disk or disks depending on your format.

You can then use the terminal and all of it's full collection of commands, full disk utility and any other repair apps to operate on your MBP while it lays on the operating table in Target Disk. When finished, unlink the Firewire and reboot into Recovery Mode for whatever finishing touches you want to make and or upgrade your system!


How to stop xampp mysql server? I just installed xampp on my mac os x. When I tried start mysql it displays a message that mysql is already running on this computer. In order to start mysql stop first mysql. I tried following ways to stop it but neither of them works.

mysqladmin version
sudo /usr/local/mysql/mysql.server stop //mysql.server command not found
mysqladmin -u root -p password shutdown //restarts the server but not shutdown

when i use which mysql command it shows this path

/usr/local/bin/mysql

and when I issue ps aux | grep mysqld command I get following output

zafarsaleem    85209   0.0  0.3  2699804  13204   ??  S     7:51AM   0:00.88        /Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysqld --basedir=/Applications/MAMP/Library --datadir=/Applications/MAMP/db/mysql --plugin-dir=/Applications/MAMP/Library/lib/plugin --lower-case-table-names=0 --log-error=/Applications/MAMP/logs/mysql_error_log.err --pid-file=/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.pid --socket=/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock --port=8889
zafarsaleem    85093   0.0  0.0  2435488    924   ??  S     7:51AM   0:00.03 /bin/sh /Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysqld_safe --port=8889 --socket=/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock --lower_case_table_names=0 --pid-file=/Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.pid --log-error=/Applications/MAMP/logs/mysql_error_log
zafarsaleem    86693   0.0  0.0  2425480    180 s004  R+    8:30AM   0:00.00 grep mysqld
zafarsaleem    86507   0.0  0.3  2678756  11364   ??  S     8:07AM   0:00.63 /usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.5.20/bin/mysqld --basedir=/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.5.20 --datadir=/usr/local/var/mysql --plugin-dir=/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.5.20/lib/plugin --max-allowed-packet=32M --log-error=/usr/local/var/mysql/Zafars-MacBook-Pro-2.local.err --pid-file=/usr/local/var/mysql/Zafars-MacBook-Pro-2.local.pid
zafarsaleem    86447   0.0  0.0  2435488    920   ??  S     8:07AM   0:00.02 /bin/sh /usr/local/bin/mysqld_safe --max_allowed_packet=32M

How can I resolve this issue?

UPDATE

When I issue this command launchctl list then I do see mysqld in the list as follows

com.apple.AddressBook.SourceSync
-           0      com.apple.AddressBook.abd
1201    -   homebrew.mxcl.mysql                    <--
443         -   homebrew.mxcl.mongodb
-           0   com.google.keystone.user.agent
-           0   com.adobe.ARM.df0ab5bbe6f698196fcc21e3c1e66dcb758bd911f4d637272d9d8109
-           0   com.adobe.AAM.Scheduler-1.0
45          -   0x7fd1bba073e0.anonymous.loginwindow
-           1   com.apple.launchctl.Aqua
1261    -    0x7fd1bba0c6e0.anonymous.mysqld        <--
 212    -   0x7fd1ba5206d0.anonymous.launchd
 230    -   0x7fd1ba5203d0.anonymous.Terminal

Secondly when I tried to issue below command as mentioned by @PunjCoder

sudo launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.mysql.plist
OUTPUT for above is:
launchctl: Couldn't stat("/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.mysql.plist"): No    such file or directory
nothing found to unload

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.mysql.plist
OUTPUT for above is:
launchctl: Couldn't stat("/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.mysql.plist"): No such file or directory
nothing found to unload

So what can I do to stop them and how? I am very new to mac os x so don't really know how to resolve this issue. Please help...

Your MYSQL instance that is running is here /Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysqld (the MAMP one) and here /usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.5.20/bin/mysqld (the one installed using Brew).

Try:

/Applications/MAMP/Library/bin/mysqladmin shutdown
/usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.5.20/bin/mysqladmin shutdown

Then start the one you want to start. You also would want to check Library/LaunchDaemons/ for any launch scripts and use something like

sudo launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.mysql.plist

Update: Please list the output of following commands:
    ls /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ | grep mysql
    ls /Library/LaunchDaemons/ | grep mysql
    ls ~/Library/LaunchDaemons/ | grep mysql

just restart the .dml file in your account


How do I change the resolution for the external monitor to 2048x1152 HiDPI? I just got a Dell P2421DC monitor and connected it through USB-C to my MacBook Pro 13'' from 2017 running on Big Sur 11.1. I know that the font won't be all crisp and Retina is just way better anyways, but I read that running it on 2048x1152 HiDPI would give me a better result for the fonts. Is it possible to do this with SwitchresX? I read so many posts already but just couldn't find a solution that works (since I'm not a coding expert anyways)...

The Dell P2421DC is a 24" 2560 x 1440 display. You can set your display to use 2048 x 1152 HiDPI, which will use the full pixel range, but scale objects up, making them appear larger. Whether text will be clearer will have to be seen. You'll also be taxing your graphics processing by scaling to a 1.25 factor, rather than whole number pixels.
Hold down ALT when you click on the 'Scaling' radio button in System Preferences > Displays to produce more options.
Your monitor has has pixel density of 122 pixels per inch. A Mac Retina display typically has a density of 218 ppi. You're never going to get close to a Retina display clarity with that hardware.
Earlier MacOS versions did have better smoothing for lower-density displays, but this has been removed, for reasons that only Apple knows about.

In finder preferences make sure its check marked in the sidebar tab.


Are the Carrier IQ daemons installed on iOS devices other than iPhones? For iOS 5, are either of the Carrier IQ daemons installed as part of the base software on any non phone device image such as the iPad, iPod Touch or Apple TV ?

On iPhones (iOS 5) these programs are /usr/bin/awd_ice2 or /usr/bin/awd_ice3

If yes, what causes them to run and to where does their data get stored or forwarded?

I am aware of the work @chpwn is doing and publishing on the chpwn blog but that is iPhone specific so far. I'm looking for hard evidence that the software is or isn't on the base OS for non-phone devices as well as if they actually generate local log files (presumably only when the collect diagnostic data switch is turned on since on iOS that is an opt-in service that does let you know data will be collected).

I just did a quick check on my iPod4,1 running iOS 5.0.1. Those two binaries are not present in that folder. However, I have seen mentions of IQ in other parts of the system such as var/wireless/Library/Logs/awd (empty) and var/root/Library/Logs/awd (empty) and com.apple.iqagent.plist in var/mobile/Library/Preferences. The only value in that plist is DiagnosticsAllowed = false. I would conclude that Carrier IQ is not present on 4th Generation iPod Touches running iOS 5.0.1.

According to the chpwn blog, answer is yes it's installed bUt keylogging not activated. Only Windows Mobile 7 doesn't have it AFATK!


Run sudo From Non-Admin Account Okay, so I'm gearing up to get a new machine so I'm looking at how I can organise things better. Now, currently I use an admin account as my main login account, but I know that that's probably not best practice, so I'd like to switch to a separate admin and non-admin account on my machine.

However, I'm a developer, and I do a lot of work in the terminal, so sometimes I do need to run commands via sudo, but of course that won't work the way I would normally run it (sudo foo, type current account's password). What I'd like to know is, knowing the details for an admin account on my machine, is it possible to run commands via sudo (or similar) from a non-admin account, without having to login to a different account each time? For example, could I trigger the enter admin password dialogue somehow?

Seems like you could use the SU command to switch to another user in Terminal. Once you've switched to the admin user you can use sudo commands coupled with the admin account's password.

For example, when I'm at one of my end user's Macs and I need to run something with elevated privileges (chown for example) without logging out and into the admin account (ladmin) I would use something like this (in bold):

Mr-Rabbits-Mac:~ notadminuser$ su ladmin

This will prompt for the ladmin account's password, once entered you will see a bash command prompt.  From here I can run any sudo commands desired, entering ladmin's password as needed...

bash-3.2$ sudo chown user2 /some/folder

This will run the chown command using the now logged in ladmin user, prompting for the ladmin account's password.  Once finished you can type exit to return to your logged in user's prompt.

Screenshot of similar process, only using sudo to run the ls command (just for example).

Go to the Directory Utility, unlock it and then from the Edit menu option select "Enable Root User". Type in a unique password for the root account and re-enter it for verification. Now with that done from any account you can open the Terminal.app from you can run "login" and enter root at the login and then enter the root password you just set up. You should be good to go! ;)


Is it possible to turn off the Two-Factor Authentication for an Apple ID? Is it possible to turn off the Two-Factor Authentication for an Apple ID?

I have more than one device linked to this Apple ID and I know the password and security questions.

You are no longer able to turn off two-factor authentication beyond two weeks from enabling the feature. Previously, this was limited to accounts created in iOS 10.3 or macOS Sierra 10.12.4 and later.
Please refer to the Apple Support Document, Two-factor authentication for Apple ID for technical details regarding Two-Factor Authentication.

Can I turn off two-factor authentication after I’ve turned it on?
If you already use two-factor authentication, you can no longer turn it off. Certain features in the latest versions of iOS and macOS require this extra level of security, which is designed to protect your information. If you recently updated your account, however, you can unenroll for a period of two weeks. Just open your enrollment confirmation email and click the link to return to your previous security settings. Keep in mind, this makes your account less secure and means that you can't use features that require a higher level of security.

What if I use two-factor authentication on a device running older software?
  If you use two-factor authentication with devices running older OS versions—like an Apple TV (2nd or 3rd generation)—you might be asked to add your six-digit verification code to the end of your password when signing in. Get your verification code from a trusted device running iOS 9 and later or OS X El Capitan and later, or have it sent to your trusted phone number. Then type your password followed by the six-digit verification code directly into the password field.

(from the Apple Support page Two-factor authentication for Apple ID)


Are OS X installs specific to a machine type? When OS X is installed, does the installer:

write only generic files (that will work on any machine supported by that OS), or
customise the installation to a specific machine type in any way?  (If so, presumably this is based on the machine that the installer is running on?)

In the past, I have assumed that the answer is "OS X installs are generic", and used various tricks based on that assumption.  But I've only ever done this in various temporary workarounds, because I don't really trust that assumption.

If I had a trustworthy (so preferably referenced) answer "OS X installs are generic", here are some examples of what I could do:

Boot a Mac Pro using the software on a MacBook Pro (ie laptop is in target disk mode, connected to desktop via FireWire, I hold down alt when booting the desktop and choose the laptop drive).
Run an installer on one machine, writing to a hard drive that I intend to install in a different machine.
Create an installation in a virtual machine (via VirtualBox etc), then write it to a standard volume for use in a physical machine, or vice-versa.
etc

To try and limit the question:

Considering Intel only: let's ignore older PPC hardware
Let's say this is about 10.8 onwards
Apple hardware only: I'm not asking about Hackintosh
I understand that some applications may be confused in various ways by a change in the underlying hardware environment, but I'm just wondering about the OS itself here.

Yes and no.

In regards to retail installation discs / upgrades "purchased" from the Mac App Store, no, they are typically not machine specific.  These are general builds that are meant to install on any supported hardware.

Machine specific builds DO exist although at this point of time they aren't an issue for most people.  When Macs shipped with physical restore media (multiple CDs/DVDs) that media was very specific to that particular generation/model of Mac.  What this meant was that you could have an early 2008 MacBook and an early 2008 MacBook Pro, the MacBook media would display an error when booting the MacBook Pro and vice versa.

In regards to the actual installed files, yes, these days the installations are pretty generic.  I don't want to say that the installed files on a MacBook Pro Retina are the exact same as those on a MacBook Air, but for the most part this will be true.  In the past (early/mid PowerPC days) there were some differences but even then you could usually use one Mac to boot another.  The main problem we used to run into was remotely installing Tiger or Leopard using a mix of Intel and PowerPC Macs.  In those situations it was best to use PowerPC to PowerPC or Intel to Intel.

The only time this may not hold true is if you're trying to boot a newer Mac using the disk of an older Mac that has an older (older than the system the newer Mac shipped with) system installed.  For instance, if a new iMac was released tomorrow and I tried to boot it using 10.9.1 installed on my MacBook Pro Retina there's a good chance that it wouldn't boot because the iMac requires 10.9.3 or above.

macOS installers are indeed specific to the Mac that they are downloaded onto, even when using softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version. This was not always the case, as I have clear memories of downloading earlier versions of OS X/macOS on say a MacBook Pro and using the installer successfully on an iMac, Mac Mini, etc.
More info and a workaround from munki's installinstallmacos.py script:

Since it is using Apple's installer, any install check or volume check
scripts are run. This means that you can only use this tool to create
a diskimage containing the versions of macOS that will run on the
exact machine you are running the script on.
For example, to create a diskimage containing the version 10.13.6 that
runs on 2018 MacBook Pros, you must run this script on a 2018 MacBook
Pro, and choose the proper version.
...
Use a compatible Mac or select a different build compatible with your
current hardware and try again. You may also have success running the
script in a VM; the InstallationCheck script in versions of the macOS
installer to date skips the checks (and returns success) when run on a
VM.


Usign iMac as a Display for MacBook Pro I did some research on this and they were saying Press Command+F2
So did I !  But here are the issues I saw with this method:

The youtube video that was previously running on iMac continued to run, I could hear its vocie but no picture. I want iMac programs to stop running if possible.

The Mouse and Keyboard on the iMac stopped working and I had to use MacBook's Mouse and keyborad which is ridiculous!

What I want to achieve:

iMac turn into Display for MacBook Pro.
Be able to use iMac mouse and Keyboard.

What I have:

Thunderbolt Cable to connect to MacBook and iMac
iMac model: These new thin 27" ones.
Macbook model: 15" retinal display ones.

Basically when I am at home and want to work on my work laptop- which is this MacBookPro one - I want to be able to connect it to my iMac and use that as display.

Ok got it working:

turn off both devices.
connect them with thunderbolt cable
turn on MacBookPro AND keep holding the "T" key on its keyboard. You will see it will go to a disk mode with some thunderbolt icon showing on its screen.
Turn on your iMac AND keep holding the OPTION key on its keyboard. You will see it will show you some hard disks on the display. Pick the one that is for the MacBookPro.
Done! Now Nothing from iMac is running in the background, iMac's peripherals are working for MacBookPro AND EVEN better: you are using CPU Power and RAM of your iMac to run MacBookPro.

NOTE: to turn off, don't just unplug the thunderbolt cable, first shut down the computer, then unplug the cable.

So they are not going to happen.

First of all the mechanism that turns the iMac to a thunderbolt display that works only with Mac is not documented, so we're in the dark. The applications running on iMac seemed to not know what happened and continued to run.

Second, since your bluetooth devices are connected to your iMac, you can't connect them to your MacBook unless you disconnect them from the iMac.

Lastly, judging from your needs, the easiest way to do them is to sync your work. That way you can use iMac's keyboard and mouse, and have it behave normally.


Unable to completely uninstall Zoom meeting app I am unable to completely uninstall the Zoom meeting app from my Mac running macOS Mojave.

I once installed the Zoom meeting app. Then I deleted it from Applications directory. Now, every-time I open a zoom meeting in Google Chrome, the Zoom app gets reinstalled automatically! Terrible...

So I investigated from where and how it has permission to reinstall and I found out they created a hidden folder .zoomus containing ZoomOpener.app and there is a ZoomUsPlugIn.plugin in ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins directory.

Question: I have deleted the following 4 files:

zoom.us.app from /Applications directory.
zoomusInstaller.pkg from ~/Downloads directory
ZoomOpener.app from hidden .zoomus in home dir
ZoomUsPlugIn.plugin from ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins directory. directory

But it still gets reinstalled. How can I completely uninstall it?

EDIT 2

the support now gave me this script to run: I ran it but it still gets installed again after opening a meeting... this is the worst app i have ever used...

official zoom support drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MP0cNLyJjzPLNrvNDCZv9hRuif091f0c

currently i run this script to uninstall, to no success

#! /bin/bash
echo Cleaning Zoom...
echo Cleaning Application Cached Files...
sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/zoom.us
echo Cleaning Application..
{
  sudo rm -rf /Applications/zoom.us.app
  sudo rm -rf ~/Applications/zoom.us.app
  sudo kextunload -b zoom.us.ZoomAudioDevice
  sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/ZoomAudioDevice.kext
} &> /dev/null

echo Removed Application...

{
    sudo rm -rf ~/Downloads/zoomusInstaller.pkg
    sudo rm -rf /Applications/zoom.us.app
    sudo rm -rf ~/Desktop/Zoom
    sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Application Support/zoom.us
    sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/us.zoom.xos
    sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ZoomUsPlugIn.plugin
    sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/ZoomUsPlugIn.plugin
    sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Logs/zoom.us
    sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Logs/zoominstall.log
    sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/ZoomChat.plist
    sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Preferences/us.zoom.xos.plist
    sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Saved Application State/us.zoom.xos.savedState
} &> /dev/null

echo Other stuff...

and i kill the process:

ps -eaf | grep -i [z]oom

EDIT 3

i ran all scripts and killed the process, now one day later, I open another meeting via chrome and... again the installer runs. I am furious

Apple will remove this for you if you have enabled keep system files updated.

https://eclecticlight.co/2019/07/10/apple-has-pushed-an-update-to-mrt-to-remove-zooms-hidden-web-server/

sudo softwareupdate --background-critical

https://tidbits.com/2016/03/30/make-sure-youre-getting-os-x-security-data/

To check your MRT Configuration Data updates, you can do that as well. Version 1.54 is the version that wrangles ~/.zoomus

system_profiler SPInstallHistoryDataType | grep -A 5 MRTConfigData

The remainder of this article applies to double check Apple and/or force removal and understand a bit more on what is running under the hood.

An installer that clears out this program that used to be installed is available - so you can clean manually as before below if you don't want to have zoom (or uninstalled it already).

If you want to use the software, just update or install the version from 9 July 2019 - https://zoom.us/download#client_4meeting

Before 9 July, the zoom installer was indistinguishable from malware in that it installs files and folders not part of a system manifest before the installer is approved to run. Then this “hidden” process opens a network port for a command and control server to receive requests and not ask the user before installing software or start up the camera and microphone. This listener can also re-install the main zoom program. I know the company says it's goal is to help users, but why not document this and get opt in from the computer admin account before taking these actions?

Until the vendor has a proper uninstaller, you should also delete and put a file in place to prevent the Zoom app from re-installing this persistent agent.

rm -r ~/.zoomus
touch ~/.zoomus

The first command recursively removes the process that listens on port 19421 and the second prevents the current installer from re-installing this "agent" if you choose to not uninstall the app. Once the above steps are done, you should restart your Mac if you're not comfortable finding and killing the web server that listens on the port 19421.

We have tested this fairly rigorously, and removing this process - killing it and blocking it has no effect on the desirable function of the app, so if you need zoom or want to use it - cleaning this up to prevent A privacy breach or unintended reinstall is encouraged.

Did you try contacting Zoom. I am pretty sure that this is an approach that they adopt so that they don't lose the users.

The same happened with me with Chrome. I had to format my Mac. I never installed Chrome again.


10.9: External monitor not recognised after monitor sleeps This issue started happening after I updated to OSX Mavericks.

I have an external monitor connected to my Macbook Pro (2010), and everything works just fine and dandy.. until my Mac doesn't have any activity for a bit and turns off the screen (NOTE: not the whole Mac is asleep at that point, it's just the screen).

Then when I swoop around on my trackpad to wake it back up, it won't recognise the external monitor the way it used to. Suddenly the arrangement is flipped (i.e. it's now below my Mac rather than above it), and the resolution is switched to 800x600 rather than the normal 1680x1050.

When I then pull the plug and plug it back in (while my Mac and its screen are wide awake), it finds its old configs again and fixes the resolution and arrangement.

Has anyone experienced anything similar, or is there a fix available? Or should I just consider this an unresolved bug, report it to Apple and hope for the best?

I have almost the same experience - after sleep my second display isn't available at all. Thanks for the tip of unplug - replug the display (firewire) - that solved the problem - but I will hate to do it all the time. My setup: iMac 27" 2011 and Lacie 526 display.

I would have most of my windows halfway or mostly offscreen.

Unplugging and replugging before I wake seems to solve this problem also.


Is there a way to spellcheck the word under the cursor with a keyboard shortcut? Basically, is there any way to trigger the native OS X spellcheck context menu using a keyboard shortcut. I know the command keys ⌘+: activates spellcheck, but what I'm trying to do is get the result of a right-click without taking my hands off the keyboard. Is there an OS X equivalent to emacs' flyspell-correct-word-before-point command.

If you're on Lion, you can turn on iOS-style spelling corrections in System Preferences under Language and Text. I don't always have luck noticing or reacting to these corrections while typing, but moving back over the misspelled word with your cursor will bring up the iOS-style popup and you can select the correct spelling with the down arrow and Return.

A similar question was asked on superuser, see Keyboard Shortcut to Right Click. To paraphrase that answer here:

Use Cmd : to activate spellcheck
Focus the floating window with Ctrl F6. (You need "Full Keyboard Access" shortcuts enabled in System Preferences. And unfortunately for me while typing this, Ctrl F6 is already used by the Stack Exchange editor.)
Use Tab and Arrows to navigate and select the right spelling
Use Escape to dismiss the floating window

You can also "Activate Mouse Keys", but I find that solution unsatisfying.

Everyone makes this so complicated! all you have to do is click and hold control and command and the click the word. and the suggestion words pop up


Not enough free space on OS X Base System while installing El Capitan with VirtualBox I am getting an error while installing OS on Virtual Box machine, that there is not enough free space as shown in the image. I allocated 20GB while setting up virtual machine, and 8.8GB is what apple says that I need here

I went to disk Utility->Disk Utility of VirtualMachine and tried changing partitioning of the VM. It cant be done. It also shows the instructions I need to take, but the "Enable Journaling" command is greyed out. What could be the problem?

It also says I am using CD ROM media, but I am not. The El Capitan iso file, that was linked to VM in the Storage tab of setting up VM, is on Desktop.

These are the screenshots for better illustration.

By accident I tried to install OS X to the OS X Installer DVD iso file (mounted to the virtual VBOX CD-ROM device) itself.

Erasing/partitioning the VBOX HARDDISK disk (see images in question) and creating a new HFS+ Journaled formatted volume seems to work.

What sanjihan said is right. But I didn't understand because it's my first time that I'm installing the macos. I find a video tutorial for solving this issue in here.


Dynamically (automatically) change the "download folder" in Safari Saft -- the (now seemingly defunct as of Safari 5.1) Safari plugin -- had the ability to change the name of the download folder (and create said folder if it didn't already exist) that Safari uses (e.g., by creating a name based on the date).  This was incredibly useful for decluttering/ordering my downloads.

Is there any comparable feature in a supported Safari extension (for Safari 5.1)?

P.S.  I know I can create a cron job to do this after the fact, but that seems kludgey and prone to errors because of file timestamps, automatically unpacked ZIP/tar/cpio files, etc.

I am using the Glims Safari Plugin (ver1.0b29) in Safari 5.1 (OSX Lion), which has the feature "Create dated folder for downloaded files".


AppleScript: How to double-click & right-click at cursor location? I want to be able to double-left-click, then immediately right-click using AppleScript.

The location of the click is wherever my cursor is located at the time that the AppleScript is triggered.

The AppleScript will be triggered by FastScripts via keyboard shortcut. I would like the script to work across all applications.

I installed cliclick. When I type cliclick -h into Terminal, I see that it can double-click, but there is no mention of the right-click.

Since you already know how to double-click with cliclick, my answer focuses on the right-click and traditionally on a Mac one used to preform a right-click via control-click, and as such you need to do the same thing when using cliclick.

As an example, using cliclick in Terminal, it will attempt to open the manual page for cliclick. I said attempt to open because cliclick doesn't have a manual page but will use the command line to preform some actions that will  control-click (right-click) to bring up the context menu, move the mouse to click Open man page as I've selected cliclick in the command line before pressing enter to execute the command line.

The image below shows the command line twice just so you can plainly see the full command line in the first line as part is obfuscated in the second line that's preforming the actual clicking on the Open man page from the context menu.

The image below is what appeared and was clicked when the cliclick command line was executed.

The image below is cropped but is presented to show it tried to open the manual page for cliclick.

I do not use FastScripts, however the example command should help you to understand what to pass cliclick to do whatever it is you're trying to do.

The cliclick command line explained:

cliclick kd:ctrl c:+0,+0 ku:ctrl m:+5,+5 c:+0,+0 - Full command line.
cliclick - The binary executable.
kd:ctrl - Press the control key down.
c:+0,+0 - Click relative to where the mouse is presently.
ku:ctrl - Let the control key up.
m:+5,+5 - Move the mouse five pixels on the x,y axis relative to where the mouse is presently.
c:+0,+0 - Click relative to where the mouse is presently.
Note: The full command line above can also be expressed as, cliclick kd:ctrl c:. ku:ctrl m:+5,+5 c:. since a . can be used in place of x,y axis coordinates e.g., +0,+0 for the relative position of the mouse. I personally prefer to use the former over the latter, however both forms work.

As you can see in the first image that cliclick was selected and the mouse, show as a text cursor, is right over the selection, then when the cliclick commands were executed, it opened the man page Terminal window for it, although these isn't one. However, it shows that a right-click was made and the mouse moved to the entry on the context-menu and clicked.

In AppleScript the above command line would be wrapped in a do shell script command as shown below:

do shell script "/usr/local/bin/cliclick kd:ctrl c:+0,+0 ku:ctrl m:+5,+5 c:+0,+0"

Note: Use the fully qualified pathname to the cliclick binary executable if it's in a location that is not in the PATH passed to AppleScript.

you can also just use like a click thing with control down, as that does right click


Problem with iTunes Store and updating WhatsApp So the problem is that I have an iPhone5 from my cousin, and yesterday I got a messages in WhatsApp from friends but I couldn't open WhatsApp. It said that I need to update WhatsApp. I went to the App Store and it required the password of iTunes Store but old email and password from my cousin, and I don't know the password.

Does someone have a solution for this? I also don't want to delete my WhatsApp because I cannot backup my chat history and also will not see the new messages that come in my WhatsApp.

It sounds very much like the phone wasn't wiped & set up as your own new device.
This means that you will need the old login data for everything you need to do on the phone - this is not good.

You will need to get your cousin to make sure the phone is removed from his iCloud account, then you need to wipe it & start afresh.
You will lose all existing data, but currently, nothing on the phone belongs to you.

See What to do before selling or giving away your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Apple’s iOS 9.3.5 update creates issues with WhatsApp


Is it possible to have tabs in Finder? I often need to open many finder windows at the same time and my desktop becomes cluttered.

Is there any way to get tabs in Finder so one window can host multiple folders?

Update: As shown in File Menu and being consistent with the rest of the macOS shortcuts, command+T will open a new tab. Tabbed Finder was introduced in OS X Mavericks in 2013.

With the native Finder app that comes with OS X is not possible to have tabs.
If you really need them you can use some Finder replacement app, like TotalFinder or PathFinder (both not free).

IMO, I would wait before buying any program/app, as the new OS from apple, aka: lion, will probably address the finder and its shortcomings.


Scaling all UI elements when using an external monitor When I use my Macbook Pro's internal monitor, I have the following options in the Display settings menu:

The best thing here is the Scaled option, which means that I can use the native resolution of the screen and rescale all UI elements bigger or smaller depending on my taste and they still look very sharp.

However, when I connect my Macbook to a 2K monitor, the Scaled option is not available, I can only set the resolution. The Display settings menu looks somewhat like this:

I don't want to change the resolution of my external monitor since I always want to use the native resolution of the monitor to achieve maximum sharpness. However, in my opinion the default UI size of the Mac is a bit too small on a typical 27" 2K screen so I would like to scale all UI elements bigger (I mean all, not just fonts) as it is possible to do using the internal monitor.

According to some screenshots that I found, the scaled menu is available at least for this 4K monitor:

So my question is: Why isn't the scaled option always available when using an external monitor with Mac?

By the way, the equivalent option in Windows is to change the DPI settings, which causes all elements to look bigger and sharp and it works on all displays:

The OS X UI is not resolution-independent, the only thing you can do is to change the resolution. Which is essentially what OS X does on HiDPI screens when switching to Larger Text or More Space, but since they are retina displays, you can't see that the resolution in some cases is not native, which you definitively can on non-retina displays.

There is a terminal command to change the interface size (which I can't seem to find right now, but I have tried once in 10.6 I believe), but it doesn't work well, especially in 3rd party applications. Some are absolutely unusable.

I have just run into this problem switching from a Dell laptop that blew up to a new 2019 Mac Book Pro.

On Windows, I could use my 4k external monitor and scale some elements up and it worked most of the time very nicely.

I really think it is upsetting not being able to use my monitor at the full resolution without everything being absolutely tiny.

I have just found a script that supposedly can at least give me more scaled options so I can get an as high resolution as possible...but it still won't be 4k!


Song cannot be played on this iPhone I have recently added a number of songs to my iTunes playlist (all mp3s). When syncing them over to my iPhone I get an error saying that 'X track cannot be played on this iPhone'.

What could be the reason for this? The file isn't from the iTunes store so I don't think DRM on the track.

What could be the issue?

I had this issue this morning. I had to force quit iTunes, unplug my iPhone, reboot it, then reconnect it and sync the playlists that wouldn't sync earlier. It seemed to work, as I now have those playlists. I think iTunes experienced a technical issue somehow with its encoding process.

Right click the song and click "make MP3 version".


Trouble opening plist files in text editor From Finder, I can preview a plist file without any difficulties. For example, using Quick Look with ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist I get a nice preview of its contents:

However, if I then try to open the file, either with TextEdit, or any other editor (I've tried SublimeText, TextMate, Vim, Nano, and Coda 2 so far), the encoding appears to be off:

bplist00Ò_"FixedRefreshesInBackgroundSettings_(com.apple.PreferenceSync.ExcludeSyncKeys ¡ 2]^����������������������������`

Here's what it looks like if I open it with TextEdit:

I've tried changing the encoding in Sublime Text and other apps, but that doesn't help.

Any thoughts?

I'm running 10.8.4.

plist files are not necessarily plain text so they need to be run through a converter. Finder and Xcode (which has a plist editor) do this without telling the user

The binary format is documented in this C code so any application can convert it and someone has written a format description in English and more Apple documentation here but note that it references old paths in /Developer/Documentation

The command line program plutil can convert to and from XML

e.g. to view a binary property list in XML format on stdout:

plutil -convert xml1 -o - <file name>

Also to convert a binary to a XML plist in place and then leave it so that the user program can read either.

plutil -convert xml1 <file name>

You can convert the property list file from binary format into XML using the following command line:

plutil -convert xml1 -o file.plist file.plist

Then edit it as usual. Secondly you don't have to convert it back, as usually apps recognise both formats.


How do I downgrade node or install a specific previous version using homebrew? I'm using brew. I have node installed, using brew. I want to use an earlier version of node.

Online, I find instructions such as, for example:

cd /usr/local/Library/Formula
brew remove node --force
brew versions node
git checkout 83988e4 /usr/local/Library/Formula/node.rb
brew install node

The problem I have with this is that brew doesn't seem to have a versions subcommand:

$ brew versions node
Error: Unknown command: versions
$ brew --version
0.9.5

I'm new to brew. Do I need to enable the versions subcommand somehow? Should I use a different subcommand instead? Is there a completely different method I should try?

I'm running OS X Yosemite (10.10.1); brew 0.9.5.

These days if you want to install a different version of node you do it this way:

First search for your desired package:

brew search node

This might give you the follow results:

heroku/brew/heroku-node ✔
llnode
node@10
nodebrew
leafnode
node ✔
node@8
....

And then install the desired version:

brew install node@8

Also remember that you can install more than 1 node package at the same time, but you cannot have them available at the same time. So if you have the latest/generic node package already installed you need to unlink it first:

brew unlink node

And then you can link a different version:

brew link node@8

For some older node versions (which are keg-only), it might be required to link them with the --force and --overwrite options:

brew link --force --overwrite node@8

https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/

You can go here and install the version you need.

Before installing you might want to run brew unlink node to unlink the current version.


Transferring apps from device to itunes Reading conflicting information on this one.  iOS 9.1, iTunes 12.3.1.  When I sync, any apps I have purchased recently do not show up in iTunes.  Some things I've read say it's a bug, some say it's by design.  If the latter, is there another way that I can manage apps in a similar way (i.e. see the whole list, sort by name/size/date added, etc., view sizes, date added, select which ones I do/don't currently want installed on the device, etc.)?

Transferring apps from iDevice to iTunes is no longer supported with iOS 9, see Can't transfer purchases from iPhone to iTunes in iOS 9 for details. Using iTunes to manage app on your iDevice is still possible though, but you need to download all apps in iTunes to do that. To automate this, set the corresponding option in Preferences->Store.

You could use a different application to manage the apps rather than iTunes. There is Apps Assist for Mac OSX to help manage all the apps. It can show you which apps you have purchased but not downloaded, duplicates and other features.
You can sort by Name, Version, Category or Release Date.


CTRL scroll zoom on Mavericks gone I used to be able to hold down CTRL and zoom by scrolling the mousewheel, but that is not longer possible on Mavericks.

I've searched around and found many people saying it's in System Preferences → Accessibility, typically accompanied by an image like this:

Unfortunately, that's not how my Accessibility window looks. All I get is this (and no, it's not under More Options):

Naturally, I tried searching in System Preferences, too:

Excitedly, I click Mouse, just to get disappointed:

There's nothing under Trackpad, either:

So what's wrong? Where did it go? Why does it show up on some Mavericks installations, but not mine? I have the newest version of Maverick (10.9, 13A603) made from a clean installation. Can it be because other people have upgraded from a previous version of OS X that had the feature?

Press ⌘ command+⌥ option+F5, then select Enable zoom scroll gestures.

You started on the correct screen but you have to go a step further and hit the OPTIONS button on the lower right of the preference panel. It should take you where you need to go.


How to wake my Mac remotely so I can use screen sharing? I have two computers: a Mac Pro, and a Macbook Air. When my Mac Pro is on (awake), I can use screen sharing to take over its screen. It displays in the Finder sidebar as a networked computer. However, when it is asleep, it does not appear in the sidebar.

How can I wake my Mac Pro (or always have it displayed in the sidebar) so when I am ready to screen share, it is available?

I have already enabled Wake for ethernet network access in System Preferences > Energy Saver. Now I need to figure out how to wake it up.

Update: I am running Snow Leopard on all of them. I am also networked using an Airport Extreme.

Update: From what I understand, you can only use WakeOnLan on computers hard-wired to the network. My laptop is using Wi-Fi and my desktop is hard-wired. I'm trying to wake my desktop from my wi-fi laptop, but WakeOnLan does not allow sending the "WakeOnLan packets" from a non-hard-wired connection. Can someone confirm/deny this statement?

The aptly called WakeOnLan is a free, simple tool for Mac, both available as application and widget.

  What is WakeOnLan?
  WakeOnLan discovers all other computers in your
  LAN, and enables you to wake them up by clicking a button. If your
  remote computer is a Mac you can put it asleep too.

Sleeping Macs with wake for ethernet access enabled will register with an Airport so that an incoming ssh connection will be sensed by the router and send a Wake on Lan packet to wake up the Mac.

Basically, ssh can wake a sleeping mac under some circumstances. This function also works for screen sharing.


Widevine disappeared in Chrome in Yosemite I updated to Yosemite a couple of days ago. When I watched a streaming service using Google Widevine it all worked fine but after a reboot Chrome keeps asking for me to install Widevine, and when I do and restart the browser it is still not working. Widevine seems to be installed because it works fine in Safari.

Any ideas on how to solve this with Chrome? Never had this problem before.

Thanks!

The latest version of Chrome is 64 bit.  Widevine only runs on 32 bit browsers


Why does 128GB iPhone have 113GB capacity? On the side of the iPhone packaging, Apple defines 1GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes (rather than 1,073,741,824 bytes), so you end up missing 9,438,953,472 bytes (~9GB) calculating it this way for 128GB of space (128,000,000,000 bytes is ~119GB).

My iPhone says that it has 113GB of capacity, but it should be 119GB, so where did the other 6GB disappear to?

The other 6 GB are OS itself. The given capacity is a value for the physical storage that the phone has, not the amount that can be used by the owner. iOS is about 6 GB in size on its own.

Also, the formatted capacity is less than the size of the chips that are manufactured into the device. It's in a very small footnote at the bottom of the tech specs for each iOS device. Typically note #1

As you can see on the following link, each OS differs between versions, device type and device size so the gap in specs to usable space isn't a fixed constant.

How large is iOS?

The OS needs that space, operating systems take up lots of space


Mail app opens randomly in MacOS 10.14.5 I have mail app open in background i.e. no window open. A new window randomly pops up without any conscious trigger by me. No new mail would have come.

Once it happened while I was in full screen mode of another app and the mail app split the window in half and got opened. This happens even when I am working in non Full-screen mode.

I presume that it has connection with notifications but other reasons are also welcome.

Once, it popped up above other apps, and some accounts were transitioning from offline to online state. I cannot confirm  about Google account as one answer mentions.

Why might this happen but more importantly, how to stop this other than quitting it properly? I want to stop it from opening it altogether, not only in split view.

The answer to Mail opens a window randomly in split screen with my fullscreen window recommends to untick a Mail preference. Unfortunately I get the behaviour even thought the preference is unticked, so I look for other solutions.

This was happening to me for a while, and it became very annoying. I found that if I force closed it and turned the laptop off and on, it worked. If that continues to happen, turn off the WIFI connection and do the same steps.

As to stop the behaviour in split mode, unchecking the checkbox in mail preferences for "Prefer split view while opening messages in full screen view" helps.

Its not a setting in notification. Its in app preference.
Open mail->Preference or open mail and press short cut key (Command+,).

Uncheck below option. Hope it works.


Can I change the flash storage in my iPhone 4? I saw a super deal where I could get an iPhone 4 8GB for such a small amount that I couldn't resist.

Does someone know if it's possible to change the flash storage for a 16GB or 32GB ?

Would iTunes recognize the device and/or enable me to reset it to default iOS and settings ?

No, it is flash memory soldered onto the main circuit board and cannot be changed. It is not similar to devices with removable/upgradeable storage at all.

In this case "no user-serviceable parts inside" would be pretty close to the truth. iFixit has a great iPhone 4S tear down if you'd like a complete tour of the internals. They have done the same to many devices if you explore a bit, very interesting.

I'm sure it's possible people did it with iPods up to like 360 gb


Unable to find my Mac OS operating system in /dev/disk0 I have issues similar to this case :

Accidently deleted some small sized partitions when installing WIndows(Bootcamp). OSX Partition wont boot

I was installing Windows 10 into my laptop using bootcamp and deleted some partitions which I thought it was unnecessary. And now the only option I have is to boot into Windows OS. I followed the method as shown in the link above but apparently my Mac OS is not inside the disk0, I am very sure that I did not delete the Mac OS and I only delete the small partitions. I am currently running Mac OS Sierra. Is it because it is hidden? I have really important unsaved documents inside my operating system and I would be really glad if someone could offer me some help!

Sorry I am a complete beginner and have no idea how to solve this problem.

Here I attach with the screenshot I took:

According to your screenshot, it looks like you deleted your main OS X partition and the recovery partition. You may very well have destroyed your data.

There is a glimmer of hope though. The numbers don't add up. It's a 250GB drive but the Windows partition is only 70GB. There's ~180GB of space unaccounted for, which might be the partitions you deleted. It's tough to say without knowing the exact steps you took.

You can try to use a partition recovery program like TestDisk to get them back.

I could tell you more of you post a screenshot of the output of the following command:

sudo gpt show /dev/disk0


How do I remove a username from the username drop down list on Chrome on Mac OS X? Googling suggests that I highlight the name with my mouse and hit delete - this doesn't work (the name stays in the dropdown list, I instead end up deleting a letter from the name textfield)

A Mac specific suggestion is to hold down the "fn" button when I click delete. Trying that seems to have no effect - nothing changes, that I can see.

How do I remove a specific username from the username drop down on Google Chrome on Mac?

To all the answers suggesting Control ⌃+Shift ⇧+Delete ⌫ It is an editor shortcut for "quick delete entire line". So it only looks like it works.

It does not add/modify/delete names from the list of login names that are suggested for autofill.

Please test your answer before posting - make sure that the auto-fill list is actually different after you've deleted a name.

Was actually having the same trouble and decided to try a combination of fn + shift + delete

The Ctrl+Shift+Delete worked for me. When the drop down options appear, use arrow keys to highlight the option you want to delete, then Ctrl+Shift+Delete removes that option.

Fn + Shift + Delete worked for me.  Sightly different key combination from most of this thread.


Restore Recovery HD partition from Yosemite downgrade I recently got back to Mavericks from Yosemite, everything went fine. As I normally do, I checked my HDD with the Disk Utility and found some trouble, then I boot on recovery mode to fix my HDD. I realize that the recovery partition was the Yosemite one (It's easy to see since the UI is different)

I want to get back my Mavericks recovery partition, so I followed along this instructions.

But my diskutil list output is a little different:

/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         499.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS EraseRecoveryHD         650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *496.1 GB   disk1

I deleted my recovery partition successfully with the command:

diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ EraseRecoveryHD disk0s3

But when trying to merge using this command:

diskutil mergePartitions HFS+ "Untitled 1" disk0s2 disk0s3

I get the following:

The chosen disk does not support resizing.

I don't know why my disk0s2 does not have a name and why do I have a disk1

BTW, I tried to avoid this trouble just by using the recovery partition I have (from Yosemite), I ran the repair disk option on recovery mode, then I booted on Mavericks and the disk utility says my HDD has the same problem as when I first checked.

The simple solution is to reformat the whole disk and reinstall Mavericks from scratch.  Doing so will get your Mavericks recovery partition back and you can migrate your data back from time machine.  I get the feeling you don't want to do that however?


Is it possible to make Mail require a password on startup? Possible Duplicate:
  Is there a way to password protect individual apps?

I want to know if I can make Mail require a password to actually do anything, see messages, etc. so no one can just go into my Mail and send messages or see my received messages.

To keep email secure in an unsecured account, webmail may be a good option to use instead of Mail.app, which isn't designed to be secured separately from the account it's being used in.

I know it's not exactly what your looking for, but you can 'disguise' mail by changing it's name and icon to that of another application.

For example pick a random application abc.app that generally would stimulate ones suspicion, and copy it's icon and name to mail.