How do I make a bootable USB OS X installer on a Mac? Does anyone have a Terminal command-line recipe for making a new bootable USB flash drive for one of the new MacBook Air's?  Is there a way to dd copy the USB boot device that comes in the box and make the new copy bootable?  I'd like to make a new backup copy of the USB rescue device for my MBA, preferably on a much larger flash drive with room for a backup of some of my working directories.

Added:

And is it possible to make, not just a rescue drive, but a bootable USB drive that will boot a fully updated version of the OS (say 10.6.8 or later)?  If so how on a MacBook Air 11, and how big a USB stick will this require?

If Apple's supported method of using the createinstallmedia tool doesn't work, you can try other options below:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372 - Create a bootable installer for OS X

With OS X El Capitan, Yosemite, or Mavericks, you can use a USB flash drive or other removable media as a startup disk from which to install OS X.

Really - try the above if you can, but as an alternative, here is a simple recipe for making a USB version of the OS X installer + associated tools. (Migration Assistant, Disk Utility, Network Utility, Terminal (that auto mounts your internal drive as needed), Firmware Utility and Password Reset Utility.

1) Use Disk Utility backup/restore to image whatever Snow Leopard DVD you prefer onto a HFS+ formatted GUID USB drive. I usually first create a IMG of the DVD, but it should work in one shot. Watch for restore errors - you may need the Disk Utility menu command Images -> Scan images for restore... before restoring an IMG to the USB drive.

2) bless the USB drive by selecting it in Startup Disk or using the command line. (Note - the manual page for bless may be moved, but the command still works on Mojave to bless an alternate boot. You can’t set this to be the default boot with System Integrity Protection but for this use, bless should still work.

It's not that hard to make a bootable image and far more secure to DIY. It also avoids the need of downloading commercial software from the internet. Happy media shifting all!

If you simply want a bootable thumb drive, just install OSX onto that volume - turning off all the extras you may not need. You can have your USB on one side and the USB install disk on the other to make your bootable drive ensuring all the Air drivers are on your USB bootable drive (which is often an issue when using another install's image - sometimes the drivers are not all there on older builds of the OS)

The best trick I have when you don't have enough space on USB to create the final updated version is to stage the bootable image by install first to a 25G partition on an external hard drive.

You can finish installing with lots of free space on the HS, run all the updates newer than your installer (10.6.8 for example), make an admin account, install the tools and apps you need. At the end of the process,  you then thin out the things you don't need. DaisyDisk or WhatSize will show you all the large files and libraries. You can safely get rid of a lot of iLife and the associated Application Support. WhatSize has many options to strip out unneeded files, localizations and PPC code. Once you have slimmed down the bootable image on the HD partition, use the trick below to get it on the USB drive. Leopard was a tight fit in 8G but Snow Leopard is lighter and doesn't need to diet as much.

Edit: Here are terminal commands for rolling your own installer like the (read-only) one that ships with current MacBook Air. I have a Snow Leopard DVD as /dev/disk5 and my USB is /dev/disk6. The man pages for diskutil and asr are helpful if you run into little gotchas or have different needs than a basic one partition drive.

$diskutil list
/dev/disk5
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *7.8 GB     disk5
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         30.7 KB    disk5s1
   2:         Apple_Driver_ATAPI                         1.0 GB     disk5s2
   3:                  Apple_HFS Mac OS X Install DVD    6.7 GB     disk5s3
/dev/disk6
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                                                   *8.5 GB     disk6
$diskutil partitionDisk disk6 GPT HFS+ MacUSB 100%
Started partitioning on disk6
Unmounting disk
Creating partition map
Waiting for disks to reappear
Formatting disk6s2 as Mac OS Extended with name MacUSB
Finished partitioning on disk6
/dev/disk6
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *8.5 GB     disk6
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk6s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS MacUSB                  8.2 GB     disk6s2
$sudo asr restore --source /dev/disk5s3 --target /dev/disk6s2 --erase
    Validating target...done
    Validating source...done
    Erase contents of /dev/disk6s2 (/Volumes/MacUSB)? [ny]: y
    Validating sizes...done
    Restoring  ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
    Verifying  ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
    Remounting target volume...done
$sudo bless --mount /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ DVD\ 1 --setBoot

Note: that the USB drive was renamed to be the same as the installer and the mount point in /Volumes has a space and a 1 tacked on the end.

Note: SIP ensures the —setBoot portion of the commands above will fail. Remove that portion and/or ignore any errors. You will need to select the USB another way than having bless perform a one step command. This is another reason to just use createinstallmedia from Apple to perform this.

OK, it is Very easy to do if you can get your hands on the myriad of "ISO" OS X installers that make their way onto the internet shortly after any release..  or create an image your Installer disk yourself.... and simply restore it onto a separate partition of your USB flash drive.. all in good ole' Disk Utility...

they key is... DO NOT insert the *.dmg or *.iso file into the SOURCE box. Instead, INSERT THE VOLUME from the mounted image onto the source box in Disk Utility "Restore".

The only reason to use DD is if you are doing some crazy custom ISO nonsense, trying to fit the installer onto a 4GB stick..  This is how I made a 4GB rescue drive that I still use to this day "Snow Leo 911", it rocks...  but if you've got room to spare... just partition that baby up and you'll be good to go.

Here's a pretty good write up of a similar approach.  Cheers!


How does one make screen captures with a shadow? How to do beautiful print screens, with shadows on the border, like this image?

Is the shadows automatic? A Mac tool? Do I need to manipulate the image in other programs like Adobe Photoshop?

No, you do not need to. This feature is built into Mac OS X.

To do this, press ⌘+Shift+4 then press Space. The selector will then change into a camera icon, and you can take a screenshot of the selected window with a shadow.

(I couldn't capture the camera icon)

End result:

The shadows aren't automatic.  There is a free tool called ImageShadowAdder that can do these for you.


How to change a PDF's title? (not file name) My question is in reference to the title shown in Acrobat Reader's tab and title bar that reads "Modern business letter."

I generated the PDF from a .docx document, and the document is generated based on a LibreOffice template (.odt) named "Modern business letter", which is where the title name comes from.

I know how to change the template name in LibreOffice, but that can cause unwanted error if I forget to change it the next time I use the same template. Im looking for other macOS options so I don’t have to struggle in LibreOffice.

How do I change the individual PDF title, either in Acrobat Reader or in Finder?

To answer the question you asked, "How do I change the individual PDF title, either in Acrobat Reader or in Finder?", you can't. Neither Acrobat Reader or Finder, by default and natively, have the capability to edit that information. It needs to be done before being exported/printed to PDF or use an app capable of editing PDF Documents.
The industry standard is Adobe Acrobat however it's an expensive app and overkill if looking to just edit that information.

If you have exiftool installed and want to do it from the command line in Terminal, use the following syntax:
exiftool -Title="New Title" /path/to/filename.pdf

To clear the Title, just use: -Title=""
Other meta-data can be changed in a similar fashion.

Open the pdf file in text editor (e.g. Notepad++) and search for the current title, then type new title instead. Save.

Example: I wanted to rename title of my pdf from "MergedFile" to "123456". I opened pdf in notepad++ and searched for "MergedFile". Found two instances and renamed both the "123456". Saved file. That's it.


How To Install Kali Linux (or Debian) on Macbook Air (Original 2008 Model) Recently got an old macbook air 2008 model. I am a linux guy and I am very new to Mac OS X. I tried but I just prefer to have my familiar debian running on this laptop. On a PC I would do this easily, but Mac is a different story.

Could anyone tell me if it's possible to run Kali Linux (Debian 6) on the original Macbook Air (proper installation, not on a virtual machine on Mac OS X) and if yes, how?

GUI
You can use the native OS X Disk Utility.app to split, resize, create & remove partitions as desired.
CLI
If you prefer to work with a UNIX-style bash shell, there are tools available via OS X's native Terminal.app command-line interface.

One of these would be a good start:
root@host:~# diskutil
root@host:~# diskutil list
root@host:~# diskutil listFileystems
root@host:~# diskutil activity

Once you have a bit of info, you might want a few of these:
root@host:~# diskutil splitPartition
root@host:~# diskutil resizeVolume
root@host:~# diskutil eraseDisk
root@host:~# diskutil eraseVolume

Boot from your installation media by holding the alt/⌥ option key during startup.

You can use VirtualBox and install Kali Linux on it. I am using Kali Linux 2 on my MacBook Pro. I have assigned it 4GB RAM and it runs smoothly.


MacBook shut down at 20% battery with no warning? My 2013 13" MacBook Retina (OS X 10.10.3, Yosemite) shuts down when I have about 20 minutes of battery left. Not sleep, full shut down. It does this with no warning at all.

I seem to remember earlier Mac laptops giving me a low battery warning at around 20% and then putting the machine to sleep (hibernation?) when it gets real low... but never a full shut down.

Does my battery need to be recalibrated? Does the system inaccurately think it has some juice left? Worth mentioning, when I plug it back in and boot it back up, it claims to be at about 15%.

Update: I've done the recalibration thing a couple of times now, but still no difference in performance. What's frustrating is that I never get the low battery warning and the machine doesn't sleep; it shuts down. I've done tons of Googling around and everything I find says exactly what Buscar웃SD suggests below. The one weird thing that I found on Apple's site is this:

  "If your portable Mac has a built-in battery, you don’t need to
  calibrate the battery."

Can't say I've ever heard that before.

I had the same problem with a MacBook Pro mid-2009. Even changing the battery for a "non-official" battery did not solve the problem; I had to take it to an authorised Apple service centre; after that, no problems and still happy as the writing of this (about two years).

Any workaround that you might find online (resetting SMC and/or PRAM, recalibrating, etc) is just a temporary measure, they won't hurt at all and might give you some peace of mind.

Besides changing the battery for a new one, the Apple tech guys have special "secret" programs that can modify certain system flags and parameters.

About a year ago my MacBook Pro Retina mid-2012 (2.7 Quad i7) started with the same exact problem; the shocking news came with an estimate of $975.00 AUD to replace the battery (as it comes glued firmly to the housing you have to replace the unibody bottom including keyboard and trackpad). Still one year later the battery has not degraded at all and I still get 3-4 hours of battery life with full performance settings, but now the message has changed from "Service Battery" to "Replace soon", after this there is still a "Replace now" message.

In brief:

Service Battery means:
There might be something wrong with your battery, or it could be nothing, but keep an eye on it.

Replace soon means:
Your battery will last less than expected, but there should be no major issues, stay alert.

Replace now means:
If you hate carrying around your charger have your battery (or the entire laptop) replaced.

Hope this helps.

I have the same issue.

Probable Cause:  If you let your computer "overcharge" meaning, you let it charge over night, or keep it connected to charger for a long duration after it has reached 100% you are damaging the battery.  On a monthly basis, you should let the battery "die" because it is good for the battery cycle, as I've been told my Mac tech experts.

You have to wonder why they can't or haven't re-engineered these machines to simply reject charge after 100% to not suffer this damage lest it is a typical profit-making scheme.


Apple wireless keyboard is outputting an " character when I expect an @ character I just bought a Mac Mini and a wireless apple keyboard. Whenever I type Shift+2, expecting the @ symbol to appear, I get a " character instead. How can I diagnose the problem and correct the mapping so Shift+2 produces the @ symbol as expected?

Several other Shift keys in that row are also wrong:  6 is &, 7 is ', 8 is (, 9 is ), 0 is 0.

For some reason your mini thinks the keyboard is a JIS (Japanese) keyboard "type".  This note might help:

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2009/12/fixing-keyboard-type-problems.html

Just experienced the same problem with shift+2 returning " on wireless apple keyboard connected to PC.
Out of curiosity I typed shift+" and this returned @.
Not a brilliant solution I know but at least it's workable.


iCloud Drive for Windows. When? iCloud Drive is a file hosting service for devices running iOS 8, OS X Yosemite, or Windows 7 or later.

When will we be able to start using iCloud Drive in WIndows PCs? I can't seem t find that info anywhere.

A guess would be Sept 17, date of iOS 8 release; though that is just a guess.
It may be with Yosemite, for which no date has yet been announced, afaik.

"When it's ready!" might be a better answer ;-)

Try this, I believe it answers your question directly;

https://www.apple.com/icloud/setup/pc.html


How do I avoid "message could not be moved to the mailbox Trash" on iOS 10? Since upgrading to iOS 10, in certain e-mail accounts (notably an msn.com account) I cannot delete certain messages in Apple Mail. If I swipe left or open the message, and click the Trash icon, I get an error message

Unable to Move Message
The message could not be moved to the mailbox Trash.

This appears to happen only for messages that have already been deleted via a different client (e.g., Apple Mail on macOS) but that still appear in iOS. No matter how long I wait, these messages do not correctly sync with the iOS client on their own, and manually deleting them produces the error above.
All the instructions I've found online for addressing this (apparently common) issue either do not apply to iOS 10 or simply have no effect (repeating the same error). The only way to delete a message once this error occurs for it is to disable and then re-enable the offending account, or delete and re-add the account entirely. The account then correct syncs with the server and shows the already deleted messages as gone. But that only works until the error happens again.
How do I avoid "message could not be moved to the mailbox Trash" on iOS 10?

Here's what I did to fix things...

(EDITED, BECAUSE PREVIOUS WAY DIDN'T WORK... EVERYTHING REAPPEARED)

Go in to settings > Mail > Accounts > (Account Name) > shut off "mail"

Force quit the mail app; force quit settings app.

Re-open mail app. It should not show any mail from that account. Force quit mail app again.

Then reopen settings, re-enable mail. Everything is re-synced. Re-open mail app.

WARNING: Do not use these steps if the email account is configured POP in iPhone settings (Possible Data Loss).

I had this same issue this morning and since my email account (Outlook) that was having prolems was set up using IMAP settings, I was able to resolve the issue using the steps below:

Ensure you're running the latest version of iOS; go to iPhone > Settings > General > Software Update to check for updates.
Go to iPhone > Settings > Mail > Accounts > Select the affected account(s) > Delete Account; this will completely remove the account from your device.
Force your device to restart; iPhone 7 users press and hold power + volume-down button until you see the Apple Logo, all of the other iPhone models can perform a Force Restart by pressing and holding both power + home button until the Apple Logo appears.
Once the iPhone restarts, re-add the account in iPhone > Settings > Mail > Add Account.

The steps above helped me resolve the issue, after I'd already tried the steps below:

Restarted iPhone.
Changed the "Mail Days Days to Sync" settings in iPhone.
Deactivated Mail account in settings and reactivated Mail account.


Is it possible to "hack" a MacBook so as to be able to install macOS Mojave? I know you can hack an iPhone, but is there a way to "hack" a Macbook? I have a late 2010 model that has been upgraded so it has the RAM, hard drive space etc... and it works beautifully, but I would really like to put Mojave on it. I am able to download the developer file, but then I got told by the iTunes Store for Mac that it is not compatible with this model.

macOS Mojave requires Metal support. Apple is justified to prevent installation on older models because they literally do not have the capability to render the GUI.

Edit: A recent upvote has reminded me about this answer. I'm appending this section to say that an inability to run Mojave is not entirely the case. Mojave still has software rendering for Recovery Mode. AnyOS'll Do's answer is not entirely wrong, despite most of the answer being assumptive.

This answer links to a tool already in existence (that has been brought to my attention before, although I didn't think much of it) to enable installation of Mojave on unsupported Macs. The only catch is that hardware acceleration will be disabled, since hardware acceleration for old GPUs has been dropped.

literally do not have the capability to render the GUI

"That is until some genius on github decides to create an opengl wrapper that interrupts metal calls. My opinion is Apples doing to force hardware upgrades and propagate #MeTooGFXLibrary. They literally DO have the capability to render "dark" mode on anything they choose, they have the source code after all. Another opinion is dropping opengl/cl support has nothing to do with performance or stability or engineering effort and purely about is profit. Pure and simple greed explains this decision."

I wrote the above at the time in disgust of the perpetual movement to deprecate hardware in this day and age that still has plenty of life left in it. I hope you can appreciate that ageing is a natural part of life, we don't deprecate that, do we?

It may then come as no surprise to some that a person like me could be passionate enough to care about not just my hardware, but the hardware of others. It's what I do, I am good at it. Also, the environment is really the biggest factor here if we must go down the rabbit hole.

Apple are the leaders of where I considered the direction of the operating system to go moving into the future. I am back peddling on this. I am an avid traveller of OS's and, if I were to hate on anything, then it would be the abominations that are Windows 8 through 10.

This need for all operating systems to look samey same (I am looking at you ubuntu) is just off-putting. As for my personal opinion piece above? Pure anecdotal, I own a MBP2011 and can not afford a new one at this time, so there's that. I am turning away from Apple once support for high sierra drops and will go the route of a *nix flavour of the month I wish to try. Staying at the forefront is always the best option for me, rather than to stagnate on an os on this device. I have been burnt by Apples ios 32bit to 64bit deprecation which removed +70% of my "paid"(i.e. not freemium crap) gaming library, because I am the sucker who likes to own things and stay updated, can't go back when one adopts too early.

To answer you about trends? I make my own, thank you. I am smart enough and ugly enough to not be herded by your mentality on such matters. I admit I jumped the gun, but I have a passionate reason to, anecdotally. My opinion may coincide with others, but I am sure the devs of MAME and WINE were under fire from all hurdle turtles jumping up and down all donkey kong like when they were trying to stand on the shoulders of the platforms they were opening up for others at the very beginning. So, yeah, I think your absurdity of running higher cpu/gpu cycles is a challenge to get around, not a spike in the ride to die from.


Why is my MacBook visibile on Bluetooth after Yosemite install? Since upgrading to Yosemite (from Mavericks) my MacBook Pro (Retina mid 2014) is visible (in "advertising mode") on Bluetooth (at least to my iPhone). It was not visible prior to Yosemite, and there's nothing that I did on my iPhone (that I can recall) to make this happen.

Why is my Mac visible on Bluetooth, and how do I hide it again?

Bluetooth needs to be in advertising mode for Yosemite's Handoff to work.

To disable Handoff in Mac Yosemite: Select System Prefs > General  and uncheck "Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices".

Spent hours searching on a solution for this problem but Jawa's answer was the correct way to solve it. Thanks!


Mojave install froze on "analytics", successful force reboot- but did it miss anything? When I was installing Mojave, the installer went up to the analytics page on which I disabled everything. Upon proceeding, the installer froze on the analytics page. I waited five minutes and force rebooted, coming back to find that Mojave seemingly installed successfully, given that it let me log in to my account and desktop.

Did I miss any options when I did this?

For me the same issue occured it stoped at setting analytics step for 30 min . Finally had to force reboot.
Reboot took longer time( 50 min ) so I had to force reboot again. Tried command +option P+R while rebooting it worked everything seems to be ok

I encountered the same issue. Force restarting the Mac resolved it in my case.


How can I better understand iCloud security for 1Password data? My understanding is iCloud uses server-side encryption of customer data.

I am no expert but what about the data e.g. of an app like 1Password which can syncs very sensitive user data to many devices via iCloud.

Since 1Password purposefully encrypts data before sending it to iCloud, does this mean the data cannot be looked up by Apple employees?

1Password does not use "iCloud" which is a service offering from Apple, by default it uses Dropbox but can also use other cloud solutions. 1Password does not support storing data on Apple's iCloud.

1Password 3 data file sync solutions

About 1Password Encryption

  The slightly longer answer is that your data is encrypted using AES,
  the same state-of-the-art encryption algorithm used as the national
  standard in the United States. 1Password uses 128-bit keys for
  encryption, which means that it would take millions of years for a
  criminal to decrypt your data using a brute force attack.

And more about Agile Keychain Design and encryption

Information about Dropbox and encryption. Keep in mind that Dropbox does not encrypt the files that you store with their service, but they do encrypt the traffic between your computer and their servers at Amazon.

UPDATE 20121217:
I see that the latest version of 1Password does offer the ability to use Apple's iCloud for storing and sharing.

Here is an knowledge base article from Apple on the subject, iCloud: iCloud security and privacy overview. But it does not cover the encryption of non-Apple application data.

Ars has a much better article discussing encryption in iCloud, Apple holds the master decryption key when it comes to iCloud security, privacy

It seems to me that Agilebits has really fallen behind on updating their web site with information about the latest version of 1Password for iOS. It looks like 1Password Pro, which I have been using for awhile now, has been removed from iTunes and the only version available is the new version here. I would guess that a new version for the desktop is also on its way.

1Password actually does use iCloud on iOS, if you enable it. I can't tell you that 1Password sends encrypted data to iCloud, but all data on iCloud is encrypted. No, Apple employees cannot sift your data, even if they wanted to it would be encrypted; however government agencies like the NSA, Chinese Intelligence agencies, international agencies, and even people will collect any data of interest, stored over the internet.


Is there a way to suppress badge counts and the dock icon bounce for Terminal.app in Lion? With the new state saving features (which I want to keep), the dock notifications are more aggrivating to me in Lion. Can I suppress the bounce and/or the notification badge functions?

While I like the new restore feature in Terminal.app that re-opens the tabs and shows the last 500 or so lines in the history, I absolutely hate that the Terminal.app now is so much more communicative and intrusive as before.

If I have a command like tailing a log file in the terminal, it constantly keeps telling me when there are new entries, which turns out to be pretty annoying.

Not only does the Terminal.app's icon jump in the Dock, it also has this nice little red badge telling me how many tabs have updates for me. Fortunately this only happens when the Terminal.app's window is hidden behind others, but nevertheless it's pretty annoying.

I looked through the Settings and can't find an option to disable this. Are there any hidden settings I could switch on/off there?

Google finds an example of what is, I think, disabling bounces for all Dock icons (not Terminal alone):

Annoying infinite bounces of an icon on alert!!!

defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool TRUE

However, that may be not the solution in this case. Puzzling me:

[macbookpro08:~] gjp22% date
Tue  2 Aug 2011 13:40:41 BST
[macbookpro08:~] gjp22% uname -a
Darwin macbookpro08.centrim.freeman-centre.ac.uk 11.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 11.0.0: Sat Jun 18 12:56:35 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1699.22.73~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
[macbookpro08:~] gjp22% defaults read com.apple.dock no-bouncing
2011-08-02 13:40:57.029 defaults[2501:303]
The domain/default pair of (/Users/gjp22/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist, no-bouncing) does not exist

— nothing relating to no-bouncing my preference file, and I can run for example

tail -f -n 50 /private/var/log/system.log

— then bring something other than Terminal to foreground, watch things added to the log and in my case:

lines added to the background window do not cause any bounce, do not cause any count to appear in the Dock icon.

Lion's window resume feature is set on an application by application basis. You can stop this in Terminal with the following command:

defaults write com.apple.Terminal NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false

Because you're editing the Terminal settings while having Terminal open, you'll need to close and restart Terminal twice before seeing the effect.


iPhone 5s Blue Screen of Death (Water Damage) I have an interesting problem with an iPhone 5s I'm repairing for a client:

Background
The iPhone 5s was dropped in water and completely submerged for a seconds (I'm not sure if it was on or off when it fell in, but I can find out), but was quickly retrieved and still worked for a few minutes before the BSOD appeared and the iPhone restarted. My client immediately turned the iPhone off and texted me about trying to fix it, I agreed to try my best, and I received it the next day.

Additional Problems
I was also told that it was having a hard time recognizing touch input, detected buttons being pressed when they weren't, and inaccurately recognized headphones being plugged into the headphone jack when they weren't.

My Repair
I began to disassemble it as soon as I got home. I disconnected the digitizer assembly, took out the battery, logic board, and Lightning dock assembly. I noticed corrosion on the bottom of the board on the back , which I cleaned best I could with alcohol and a toothbrush, but is still stained and around a chip on the top of the board on the back. I cleaned the Lightning jack assembly the same way, but when I connected it to the board and tried to charge the iPhone, it didn't work. I cleaned the port on the board and it worked. After a few hours (disassembling, cleaning, testing, cleaning again, testing again, etc., then reassembling, the iPhone was at least working better than when it was brought to me and all of the above problems were fixed.

BSOD
However, upon unlocking the phone and testing it more thoroughly, the iPhone crashed with the BSOD and restarted. I timed it and it always happens between 2 and 3 minutes after being unlocked, however never appears on the lock screen.

Additional Info

iPhone 5s is running iOS 9.2.1
No iWork apps are installed (some said that iWork apps, like Pages, caused the BSOD when syncing to iCloud)
I will try to relay any questions you have to my client

Any idea as to what is causing the BSOD and how I should fix it?

Update: I tested it with a different digitizer assembly (just the LCD and digitizer, no TouchID connected, no earpiece speaker, no front camera, nothing else) and to my amazement, it worked for almost 15 minutes before I decided to shut it off myself and put the old complete assembly back on. However, with everything (including TouchID) connected again, it went to the BSOD after a couple of minutes. I suspect TouchID.

Update 2: I believe that the above update was just a coincidence, as I just got the BSOD with the cracked screen.

After hours of testing many components, I think it's the battery at fault. Every battery has a processor inside of it which lets the iPhone know how much it's charged and handles other system-level battery stuff. The water must have majorly screwed up that processor and the battery itself, because I'll turn the iPhone on once and it'll read around 40% and it will work for 15 minutes straight, before I turn it off and then back on again. But then it'll either say something really low, like 12%, or really high, almost always in the 80%, but it will crash with the Blue Screen Of Death and restart itself. I put the battery from a family member's iPhone 5s in and it works, and no matter how many times I restart it, I get the actual charged percentage and no BSOD. I got this battery from iFixit, who I've had good luck with in the past.

You may get help on here. It works for my iPhone 6.
https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/198586/Apple+logo+then+blue+screen


Is there a way to zoom with the front camera on an iPhone (iOS 13.5.1)? I'm running iOS 13.5.1 on an iPhone XR. I can zoom with the back camera (in by "spreading", out by "pinching"), but is there a way to zoom with the front camera?

Go to this website and purchase the App from the App Store. Once installed you also zoom with the front camera. https://camera.plus

With the app Camera+ you can zoom the front camera.


Songs show up as individual albums in iOS Music app I manually manage my iPhone's music (iOS 11.1). I use music from my hard drive, not from my iTunes account. When I drag music to my iPhone, all metadata of my music shows up in iTunes (iTunes 12.7.1.14) correctly. But on my iPhone, an album is broken into individual albums. So a 12-song album is turned into 12 1-song albums. This is the case 100% of the time. Every time that I add any album to my iPhone, every song will show up as separate albums.

Also, the artist is missing from every song on my iPhone.

I am 100% sure that my metadata in iTunes is correct. Artist, Album, and Album Artist are all identical down to the capitalization and everything is correct on the Sorting tab. The Compilation box is not in play here. I have verified my song metadata with a 3rd-party ID3 editor.

The only thing that works is to delete the music from the iPhone and then re-add the music. When I re-add the music, the music now is grouped together and labeled correctly on my iPhone.

Can I fix this issue without having to delete and re-add the music onto my iPhone every time?

Have the same issue. I figured out that adding first song of albums and then rest of the songs works. But also looking for better resolution.

For long i had the same problem.
And because i listen to a lot of audiobooks it was much much worse.
Of course the copying, deleting copying worked.
But, i found another solution:
I switched to the amazon music player app.
And it works perfect. :-)
I also tried Ecoute and some other players but all had the same issue as the original.
I hope this helps at least a bit.


Offline music not showing up after iOS 9.2 upgrade After upgrading my iPhone to iOS 9.2 today, the songs in the Apple Music library don't show up as saved offline. Playlists show as offline.

I went to Settings->General->Storage and the Music app is using the same amount of storage as before (i.e. the music's still on the phone). But when I click on 'Music' in Storage, the Settings app freezes and doesn't recover even after minutes.

What are my options?

(I can of course redownload the library, but several gigabytes of my storage is already gone)

My wife had a very similar problem, ever since upgrading to 9.0. I had to do the following in 9.2 to resolve her issues:

Backup her iPhone.
Wipe and restart her iPhone.
Reload from her backup.
Turn OFF iCloud Music.
Turn ON iCloud Music, selecting "Merge" when warned about deleting or merging the current content on her iPhone.

She can now see and download any content in her library, and make anything she wants available for offline listening.

Here's how I solved this:

Go to "Configuration/Settings"
Select "Music"
Tap on the option "Join Apple Music"

That's it, with that option the Music App pops up directly in your local music files.

I think the problem is with the splash screen (the one with the girl with headphones), but with the "Join Apple Music" option that screen don't show, so, the app opens with no problems.


How to embed an Image in Mac OS Sierra Mail Application Me and a co-worker are trying to embed an image in our email signature in the default apple mail application with an url. For example we have this image https://www.kieran.pw/unnamed.jpg and want this in our signature. We do not want a file that is being sent with the email. We tried to edit the email HTML code in ~/Library/Mail/V4/MailData/Signatures but mail just either deletes it or completely ignores it even though we edited AccountsMap.plist and AllSignatures.plist with the correct data. Did apple remove that feature with version V4 because we read a tutorial about V2 and it apparently worked there.

There’s an entire new Storage Management window, located in the System Information app, that provides a suite of tools to help you free up disk space. Some aspects of the window are based on turning on or tweaking settings, like how Mail stores attachments and if iTunes should delete video files that have already been watched.


minimum MacBook and specs required for iOS development I have this early 2008 MacBook 13" which only is upgradeable to 10.7.5.

I checked on the app store and it says Xcode requires OSX version 10.8.4 Mountain Lion and later. Although this page from Apple Dev Center says the requirement is Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and later.

Is this MacBook sufficient for iOS development,and if so, what iOS version does it support?

If you want to develop apps for iOS 7 or later, you need to have the Xcode 5+ with Mountain Lion or Mavericks. Snow Leopard or later is required to run Xcode 4+.

Xcode 4+ == iOS 5, 6
Xcode 5+ == iOS 6, 7

Incorrect. You need the latest Xcode if you're going to submit the app to the app store. If you're developing for personal use or to learn, Pratik's advice is okay. If you're going to develop and ship, you'll need a friend who can run the most recent Xcode.


How do I load the DiskManagement framework in single user mode? From single-user mode in OS X 10.5, I want to run

diskutil repairPermissions /

but I get an error:

Unable to run because unable to use the DiskManagement framework
...

Is there a way to load the DiskManagement framework or otherwise repair permissions in single user mode?

The Disk Utility Repair Permissions command is just a front end for the repair_packages program.
Use this:
 /usr/libexec/repair_packages --repair --standard-pkgs

Suggestion: run /sbin/mount -uw /  prior to running the above command.  Sometimes the disc may be mounted as read only and the command above will not work until you mount it with write permissions. You will be then able to successfully restore file permissions using the command after mounting the disk as writeable. The command ran for over two hours.

I find many times it relates to disc space.
reboot holding down CMD + S  (safe mode )
once on the command line, issue a df -h command to view disc usage.
if low on disc you may issue another command for finding big files and deleting some:
sudo find / -size +500000 -print (will display files bigger than 500 MB)
this might take some time so sit back for a while.
when done , you will find a list of files with the full path to them for example:
/Volumes/Data/Stuff/Movies/Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope.mp4

you can then issue the rm -rf for example, you want to make space on your disc by removing the star wars movie you just found:
rm -rf /Volumes/Data/Stuff/Movies/Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope.mp4

thats it
try this out then once back online , please make sure you have a time-machine backup (with a Qnap NAS or a time-capsule machine) or some good secure cloud backup.


Is there a third-party iTunes store browser? I like browsing through the iTunes store's music content, but I really don't like the UI on the macOS iTunes store application (Macbook Pro). Is there a third-party app that emulates the iTunes store (API calls and whatnot)?

Edit: I was talking about my computer the whole time, not the iOS iTunes store. Whoops.

A very basic way to browse the iTunes Music Store with less of bling-bling and no ads is nashville:

Open Terminal and install nashville:

sudo gem install nashville

After the gems are installed, choose an inspiring coloring scheme:

osascript -e "tell application \"Terminal\" to set background color of window 1 to {56000,450,10000,0}"

Now search for an artist, an album or a song.

Check its --help or its [command] --help. By entering its preview [previewUrl] you can also listen to some music previews with an external player like QuickTime Player.

Use any third party player that can import your iTunes library.


kernel_task filling up disk Something weird just happened.
I got a warning that my disk was running out of space. I knew that it had like 15GB free before and wondered where all the free space went.
I checked Activity Monitor which showed me that kernel_task wrote around 16GB of memory to disk. I kept observing and noticed that it went up at a rate of around 1GB per minute.
This went on until there were 0 Bytes left on my disk. This made my macbook basically unusable. I couldn't even open Web pages and when i tried to shut it down, it froze.
I did a forced reboot and the lost memory is back now. kernel_task is not writing to disk like crazy as before either. Anyway, I'd like to know what happened there. Any clues about what could've caused this?

This happened to me once. I used Daisy Disk to figure out where the disk usage was coming from.

In my case, there was a problem with the coresymbolicationd cache, which was growing indefinitely, and continuing through reboots and reinstalls of the latest Combo Update.

After deleting /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.coresymbolicationd, everything returned to normal.

Next time this happens, I recommend taking a look with that utility.

Restart the computer.
Hold Command+Option+P+R on startup and verify Macintosh HD
Do a PRAM reset,

To reset your NVRAM, you use exactly the same procedure you once used to reset PRAM: Shut down your Mac, press the power button, and as soon as you hear the startup chime, hold down Command-Option-P-R. Keep holding down those keys until you hear a second startup chime. Then let go and allow your Mac to continue starting normally. Then check the Startup Disk, Display, and Date & Time panes of System Preferences to make sure they’re set the way you want them.
If you hold down Command-Option-P-R at startup and you see nothing but a gray screen that doesn’t change for several minutes—no Apple logo, no progress bar, no second startup chime—don’t panic. (This happened to me just last week.) The most likely cause is that your Mac isn’t registering the key presses due to wonkiness with a USB device. Disconnect all USB devices (except your keyboard, if it’s a wired keyboard), hold the power button down until the Mac shuts off completely, and then press it again and immediately hold down Command-Option-P-R. If that doesn’t work and you’re using an external Bluetooth keyboard, try plugging in a USB keyboard instead. If you’re able to reset the NVRAM successfully with the wired keyboard, you can disconnect it and go back to your normal Bluetooth keyboard.

Reset the SMC, if all else fails

Before you can reset your SMC, you must shut down your Mac. After that, the procedure varies depending on the type of Mac you have.
Desktop Macs: Disconnect the power cord (either from the Mac or from the AC outlet). Wait 15 seconds and plug it back in. Then wait another 5 seconds and turn the Mac back on.
Portable Macs with non-removable batteries: Make sure the Mac is plugged in to AC power. On the built-in keyboard, press and hold the Shift, Option, and Control keys on the left side and press the power button. Release all the keys at once, and then turn the Mac on normally.
Portable Macs with removable batteries: Disconnect the AC power cord and remove the battery. Press the power button, hold it for 5 seconds, and then let go. Put the battery back in, reconnect the power cord, and turn the Mac on normally.

This could be caused by a number of things, but usually it's just a glitch in macOS.


Can I delete files or folders from /private/var/folders/? I have this folder /private/var/folders/bf/ with 3GB of what seems temporary files. Can I delete this folder?

You can safely delete anything in /private/var/folders/ but not the folder itself
sudo rm -rf /private/var/folders/*

Quit all apps before you do & reboot afterwards … and whatever you do, don't touch anything else in /private/var/, and do not delete /private/var/folders/ itself.

Rumor has it that one should not delete /private/var/folders/zz. This article implies otherwise, but if you want to be on the safe side, use
cd /private/var/folders
for i in *; do if [ "$i" != "zz" ]; then sudo rm -rf "$i"; fi; done
sudo rm -rf zz/*

instead.

do a "safe boot" once in a while if bothered by the evergrowing caches...
the word ( apple kb article link - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262 ) is that it cleans caches out.


Why is the iPhone label available on some contacts but not others on my iPhone 5S? I have an iPhone 5S running iOS 7.0.4. I want to designate some of my contacts as having an iPhone with the iPhone label vs the generic mobile label. I have edited some contacts and have changed their cell phone number to reflect the iPhone label. However, some contacts the iPhone label is simply not present, nor is the custom option. I can not determine why this behavior is manifesting.

If they are stored locally instead of on iCloud they will not sync.
If you can place them in iCloud they will sync correctly.

Uncheck all accounts to find the wrongly placed contacts, happy hunting! (:

The custom lable is missing from all contact just because of account save in your iphone like outlook,gmail etc. To solve this problem.
Follw the following steps.
1) Go to settings
2) Tab on mail,account,calendars
3) Than tap on your account like outlook and turn off contact label from all account


The document “Example.dmg” could not be opened. Disk Utility cannot open files in the “Disk Image” format I've been having trouble with my Mac since I installed Yosemite, where I open an .dmg file, and it would go to the Disk Utility, then I would have to open it from there.  My MacBook running Yosemite did not do this, and would give the normal graphic to drag the file over applications to execute it.

Now I've upgraded to Sierra, and I get an alert that says "The document “Example.dmg” could not be opened. Disk Utility cannot open files in the “Disk Image” format".  I try to right click the file, but it does not give me an "open with" only an "open" which gives the same error.  Again, my MacBook just opens the installer program just fine.  I verify the images on Disk Utility, and I get an "operation successful", but the file still won't open.

I am sure there is a way to get round the problem and open the .dmg files, but I would like to adjust the settings so that the installer opens as designed.

So, this solves the problem of how to get the file to open. I don't know why the "open with" was not working, but after several hours of trying different search strings in Google, I found this article that explains how to change the default to the disk image mounter instead of the Disk Utility: How to change default apps on the Mac.

Steps are copied below:

Go to the Mac's Finder.
Find the file type you'd like to open with a specific app, and select it.
Click on the File menu and select Get Info.
Expand Open with: by clicking on the triangle to the left.
Select the Open with: menu, then choose the app you'd like to use to open all documents like that one.
Click the Change All... button.
You'll get a dialogue box asking you to confirm your choice. Click Continue.
Close the Get Info window.

Worked like a champ.  I don't know how this got changed in the first place (my Macbook did not change), but that is another question.

I had the same issue after updating to High Sierra. I downloaded the program over and over with no changes, all that popped up was that the disk image could not be recognized. I finally downloaded Google Chrome, downloaded the software again and it opened. I then had to go into my security settings when it prompted me to do so and allow the application to be opened anyway sense it was not from an identified developer. I clicked open anyway and BAM problem solved!


Is it possible to run three versions of Google Chrome? How might I run 3+ versions of google chrome so I can log into to 3 different google accounts.

More specifically I am looking to have separate icons in the dock for the 3 separate running applications.

How might I run duplicate and or copy versions of the same application.  The following linked question on SuperUser by Mark works for a lot of applications but not for Google Chrome.

It appears the following might work link.

Google Chrome Canary is a bleeding-edge version of Chrome which uses its own profile, so it can be run in parallel to a regular copy of Chrome. The Canary browser is the least tested version of Chrome in their development pipeline (Canary → dev → beta → stable), but contains the newest features. For this reason it may not always work as expected, or sometimes not at all. It receives updates every single day. This SO post describes it in more detail.

You can run Google Chrome and Google's nightly developer build, Canary (https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/canary.html), on the same machine at the same time.


Does Google Photos Backup keep album structure? Will the Google Photos Backup for OS X also back up the album structure from Photos.app? That is, will albums be available as collections on Google Photos after uploading?

No album structure uploaded. raw upload of the pics.


How to remove an accidentally dropped file shortcut icon from Finder toolbar? I accidentally dropped a file in the Finder toolbar instead of the destination folder (the ZIP icon on the right of the screenshot):

How can I remove it from the toolbar?

Hold down ⌘ Command
Click file and drag it out

You need to hold down Command ⌘ and Fn and then drag the file off the toolbar.


Eclipse Fails To Launch Complaining of Incompatible Java VM I get the following error when trying to launch Eclipse, which I recently tried to install.

"Version 1.6.0_65 of the JVM is not suitable for this product.  Version 1.7 or greater is required."

I'm running Mountain Lion.

I have the most recent 1.8 installed from Oracle, and this is the install I would like Eclipse to be using.  The following image shows the info from the Java Control Panel including the version number and the install path.

Here's is the info on the Apple installed Java VM which is the one Eclipse is currently trying to use.

~> which java
/usr/bin/java
~> java -version
java version "1.6.0_65"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_65-b14-462-11M4609)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.65-b04-462, mixed mode)
~> ls -l /usr/bin/java
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  74 Oct 16  2013 /usr/bin/java -> /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current/Commands/java

From your comments you have  the Java 8 JRE which is only a web plugin you need to install the Java 8 JDK

Changing things in ~/.bashrc does not effect the environment of apps launched in the GUI

watch this video to solve your problem incompatible jvm/jdk 1.8/1.7 requires 11 or higher version.
https://youtu.be/UysE4KN-HGY


iPhone won’t install previously deleted default app I’ve been trying to reinstall some default apps I had previously deleted such as “Watch” and “Files” through the App Store however with all of them I get the message:

  Unable to install ‘app name’ Please try again later.

All other apps download fine, it’s just the default Apple apps that won’t install.

Try restarting your iPhone. Sometimes rebooting it , helps.

I found that resetting all settings in Settings>General>Reset sorted the problem out.


Add a song into a playlist while listening to it? Is there a button to add the song that is being currently played into a playlist on my iPhone?
So i don't have to search it back and add it manually?

No - the playlists only get curated from the playlist tab.

The iPods with physical buttons have an "add to playlist" functionality that worked this way but there's nothing yet in iOS 4 or less to do a similar thing. The drawback there is everything got added to the "on the go" playlist - not an arbitrary one.

I've done something sort of like this. It doesn't add a track to a playlist—it adds metadata to a track, and you can have a smart playlist where tracks are selected based on that metadata. I then use a macro facility (Quicksilver) to assign a key command to that script.

I've used the "Grouping" metadata field -- technically, this is supposed to be reserved for movements in classical music, but I couldn't find any tracks that actually use this field, so I felt OK about misusing it. If that bothers you, you could easily change this to use the "Comments" field.

Here's the script. It's very simple.

  tell application "iTunes"
    try
    -- change "keyword" below. Keep the quotes!
    if "keyword" is not in grouping of current track then
        set x to grouping of current track
        if x = "" then
            set grouping of current track to "keyword"
        else
            set grouping of current track to x & ", keyword"
        end if
    end if
    end try
  end tell

Open Applescript Editor, paste the above into a new script, and save it as a script file with whatever name you want to [username]/Library/iTunes/Scripts (if the Scripts folder doesn't already exist, create it). You can invoke it from the Scripts menu in iTunes once you've done that, or use some kind of macro software to create a keyboard command.

Then create a Smart Playlist in iTunes where the criterion is "grouping contains [keyword]"


Why can't I paste into the password dialog when mounting an encrypted disk image? I've got an encrypted sparse bundle disk image and I've used fstab with the right UUID to mount it someplace other than /Volumes. What I would like is to just dbl-click on it, enter the password and have it show up where I want it. I use a password manager and I have intentionally chosen a long random gibberish password for the disk image. It seems that I am not allowed to paste my password into the dialog that asks for a password when mounting an encrypted disk image.

Am I doing something wrong?

No, you aren't doing anything wrong. Apple doesn't allow you to paste into certain secure dialog boxes. It's a feature, not a bug. (It makes a brute force hack of the dialog box more difficult.)

You can paste the password into the command line if you mount the secure image using hdiutil.

Open Terminal and type:

 hdiutil attach /path/to/imagefile -stdinpass

When prompted for the password, copy it from a text file or (preferably) a password vault and paste it into terminal.

If the path/to/imagefile is complex, you can type the command, a space, then drag the imagefile icon from the finder into the terminal window to automatically enter the path/filname.

Apple's security prevents this as answered separately by jaberg.  But are you not prompted to store the password in your keychain?  I've only used encrypted physical volumes and not disk images, but I'm always prompted to store the password to my keychain.


Screen brightness decreases when I middle-click I have a logitech wireless mouse hooked up to a macbook pro running 10.7. Whenever I middle-click the mouse button, the laptop's display brightness decreases. It behaves just as if I had pressed the F1 key. The middle-click still works in applications (e.g. Firefox opens a new tab), it just has this annoying side-effect. How can I correct this behavior?

What you need to do is change the key mappings on your mouse. What this does is tells your computer what to do when you press key X.

For Mac…

  MapKeyboard is a free program to remap your keyboard. Using MapKeyboard, you can alter any key on your keyboard to function as a different one or altogether disable it as well. This is an essential tool for laptop users and other people with keyboards whose keys differ from the standard 101 keyboard layout.

For Windows…

  SetPoint Software

  Logitech SetPoint™ software lets you customize your mouse buttons, keyboard F-keys, and hot keys. Use SetPoint to control tracking speeds and configure other device-specific settings. It can also notify you of our device’s battery status, and whether Caps Lock and Num Lock are on.


iPhone 5 Car Bluetooth Issue with Incoming Phone Calls I have an iPhone 5 running iOS 10.2 and a 2015 Chevy Mailbu with Bluetooth capability for calls and streaming audio (non CarPlay).

The problem I have is when I am receiving calls (everything else works fine).  When a call comes in and I answer it, regardless if I press the phone button on the steering wheel or the answer button on the phone, the iPhone immediately switches to its internal speaker  I have to manually switch it back to the "Bluetooth headset" (car speakerphone) for the audio to work properly.

I have tested this in 3 different cars - the Chevy, an Infiniti and a truck with an aftermarket Kenwood radio.  The problem is present in all three vehicles.  I have also tested with a Windows Phone and and Android phone and both phones work with the cars properly so it's definitely a phone issue.

I have rebooted the iPhone, deleted the profile and re-paired with the radio and I have even reset the iPhone to factory default and re-paired it as if it was new.  The problem persists no matter what I do.

Does anyone know what the issue is or what I have to do to solve it?

[Update]
Problem still persists after iOS 10.3, didn't resolve the issue.

I think this will fix it :

Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Scroll down to interaction section -> Call Audio Routing -> Choose headset


Cleaning a MacBook Pro keyboard that's been covered in juice My lovely son spilled apple juice on my laptop keyboard.

It works, but it feels like it has grit under the keys and sticks a bit.

How do I clean it out?

I remember old keyboards could be just banged hard against the desk... I presume thats a bad idea though...

It's a macbook pro 15 inch laptop

You can actually remove the keys, clean them and then replace them again.

Follow this link to see how it's done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSpPlMdGvVI

The problem with liquid damage is that although the laptop may work fine now, if the juice has got onto the Logic Board, it can cause corrosion over time, which will more than likely cause issues.

However, I do hope this is not the case! Good luck!

Before doing anything I would drop the computer in a big sack of rice to make sure it dries up internally. You don't want any of that juice seeping down the cracks to the motherboard believe me!

Good luck!
TOM


Are the photos I share using the Photos app not really shared? When I share a photo to iCloud using the Photos app, subsequent edits to the photo in my library seem not so sync with the shared photo. Has sharing created a new copy of my photo?

Yes - sharing the photo puts it in a cloud backed "truth" where that image is available for all participants of the album to download and modify their copy, but not to change the original.

You'll want to share the edited version and then clean old ones until such time editing directly that shared image is implemented.

No, indeed.

Photos that you share are not shared [sic], but are copied and then shared, despite clear indications in the user interface that would lead to the conclusion that they are.

Furthermore, as a consequence, albums are not shared at all: instead the individual photos in the album at the time it is shared are copied. Moreover, if you add photos to an album, and wish to add them to the shared "version" of that album, you must make sure to "share" only the added photos, as any photos that you "share again" will have new copies made for them in the shared album, and the order of the photos in the ablum will not match the order in the album that you "share" them from (the order is a frustrating combination of the order in which they are added and the date taken).

So albums are "shared" only in a marketing-speak sense.


Can an Airport Express be used to extend the Wi-Fi of another-non Apple Access Point? My colleague has a cheap Cisco Access Point on another floor. He is using a Mac Pro and the the Wi-Fi is very spotty.

Can an Airport Express be used to extend this network?

Apple seems to be saying in a round-a-bout way here that other routers are not supported for wireless range extensions (with a router connected to Ethernet and the Express not):

Extend an existing Wi-Fi network’s range.
If you already have a
wireless network in your home and want to extend its range, AirPort
Express can help. Just place it in range of your primary base station
— an AirPort Extreme, Time Capsule, or another AirPort Express — and
near the area where you want your wireless connection. Launch the
easy-to-use AirPort Utility app on your iOS device or Mac, and you’re
mere minutes away from long-range Wi-Fi enjoyment.

However, this is only if your AirPort Express is not connected to Ethernet.  Otherwise, you can setup a roaming network. The newer Airport Express models (the ones compatible with 802.11n) can do this.

First, you need the Express connected to Ethernet.  Make sure that the main non-Apple router is set to share a public IP address.  Next, when setting up the Express, just set up its Network name and Password exactly the same as the network used by your non-Apple router.  The network mode needs to be "Create a wireless network," it should Connect Using "Ethernet," and Connection Sharing needs to be "Off (Bridge mode)."

You can only hook up an early 2009 Mac Pro by using a e cord attached to the base station,  The base station must be plugged into the modem or the router,  Sad but true,  Oh well,  At least I'm going to saVe a couple hundred bucks!..


How to connect to the internet from Terminal when using a proxy with authentication I have to use proxy servers to connect to the internet. I have set all proxies in my system proxy settings. Now I can connect to Internet using my browser and applications.

But I cannot connect to internet from my terminal.

I tried

export http_proxy="http://username:password@proxyserver:port/"

But still terminal applications cannot connect to the internet.

Terminal does not use proxy settings configured in the network preferences pane because it doesn't do any connection. Terminal just let you fire commands which will use the network in different ways.

When setting your http_proxy and https_proxy environment variables should not include the http: or https: prefixes.

Therefore the environment variable in your case should read:

http_proxy=username:password@proxyserver:port

Note: many old programs have issues with connecting through proxy servers which require authentication before connecting.

Additional Tip:

Due to our infrastructure we found it much easier to have users run SquidMan locally and have it configured to connect to our main proxy. This allows the local machine to act as a proxy directly, and eliminates a lot of authentication issues etc when using proxy servers on Mac machines, especially in a mixed and AD environments.

In the case of using this method our http_proxy and https_proxy would be:

http_proxy=localhost:3128

You can use the following command in the Terminal Window.

networksetup -setairportnetwork $Interface $ssID $Password

Here,
$Interface is the "enX" style identifier for your AirPort card (usually en1, but it's en0 on MacBook Airs and en2 on Mac Pros, and can vary for other reasons as well)

$ssID is your network name, such as "Simon's SSID". Enclose it in quotes if it contains spaces.

$Password is your WEP, WPA-PSK, or WPA2-PSK password.


Apple Mail always needs to "rebuild" Exchange mailbox for new mails I'm experiencing problems on macOS Mojave 10.14.2 with an Exchange Mailbox in Apple Mail. The Exchange Mailbox account only updates once I click Mailbox > Rebuild.

According to the Connection Doctor (Window > Connection Doctor), all connections work properly. Outgoing mail also works. With the same setup on my iPhone 6, iOS 12.1.13, there are no issues and the inbox updates promptly. The issue seems to be related to the Apple Mail on my Desktop computer, and to Exchange accounts only. My Gmail (IMAP) account in Apple Mail works as expected.

How can I troubleshoot the issue, when one of several mailboxes won’t show new mails?

As MS Exchange keeps all of your data on the server there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't just remove that account. Delete any leftover mailboxes from mail.app and then re-add the Exchange account. I find that often fixes issues between mail.app and Exchange.

As an aside I stopped using mail.app for exchange connectivity (for work) for reasons that there are times when mail.app, Calendar, contacts, reminders, etc. just don't behave as expected when connecting to an Exchange server. Microsoft's (free, last I checked) Outlook client is actually an excellent mail client and I have never had a problem with Outlook on the Mac or on my iPhone.

Meanwhile, you can try the shortcut command+shift+N to refresh the account emails.


Erase MacBook hard drive without the use of the mouse I want to sell my Early 2015 MacBook Pro Retina.

It has an unknown issue where the mouse input isn't working properly and I can't click (when using either the trackpad or a USB mouse).

I have got to the Disk Utility page but I can't click the 'Erase' button to finish the job and there seems to be no way to do this with the keyboard.

Is there a way I can erase the hard drive without using the mouse? I can access the Terminal when I login.

You can use a Keyboard combination to erase your Macbook with VoiceOver's accessibility feature.

First, reboot your computer and be in Recovery mode with the combination of ⌘+R.
At the recovery welcome screen, press ⌘+F5 keys (or ⌘+fn+F5, if you're on an Apple laptop) to enable VoiceOver's accessibility features.
On the macOS Utilities selection screen, use the arrow keys to highlight Disk Utility, press the Tab button to highlight the Continue button and press ⌃+⌥+Space as instructed by the voice-over display screen.
Use ⇥ (tab) if needed to be on your Macintosh HD-Data. Once you follow the voice control option, you can be on Erase option, and press ⌃+⌥+Space
Voila !! it is done without any mouse too.

If you can open the Terminal, the command rm -r * will erase the whole disk, we usually avoid telling anyone that because they may accidentally use it - most people here aren't looking to erase their disk drive.  You can type man rm to read the man page for the rm command.


macbook pro 15 inch retina, keyboard shortcut for desktop display I have the latest MacBook Pro 15 inch with Retina display, OS 10.8.4. Not wanting to use the standard Fn keys but use them as Apple has assigned them.

Is there a keyboard shortcut to display the desktop? I find the finger drag on the trackpad literally a drag!

Thanks, Carin

cmd-F3 works for me.  If you have Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys turned on in System Preferences > Keyboard, then it would have to be fn-cmd-F3.

Just press command + F3
And repeat the same command to bring the windows back.


What is the relation between water damage and a cracked iPhone screen? This morning I took my iphone 5c to the genius bar and they refused to repair my cracked screen of the iphone initially agreeing to repair and then backing off citing water damage.

My iPhone is in standard 1-year warranty yet, so I don't understand what the connection between water damage and a cracked screen is.

Can someone explain Apple's reasoning or decision?

Just like an automotive repair service, some damage costs more to repair than it would cost to make a new vehicle. In car terms, your phone is "totaled" and the physical damage to the screen alone lies outside the warranty.

You could buy a new phone from the vendor and then submit that cost to your insurance company if it covers the accidental (or not) damage to your property for reimbursement.
You could ask Apple why they aren't offering you a "partial repair" - where you acknowledge that some damage is present and want a limited repair and then forgo the warranty on the repaired phone. My guess is they decided that all Apple repaired phones need to pass all tests and they literally can't even know how much liquid damage has spread without entirely reworking the phone.
You could seek repair from a company or person other than Apple.

Liquid damage is expensive to even diagnose since the small cracks in an iPhone ensure that water can and will go everywhere. If corrosive salts are coating the electronics you now have a safety and reliability concern. The cost to inspect and test every single part is akin to painstakingly refurbishing a 1971 Hemi 'Cuda convertible that you found rusting in a field. In that case, there were external factors that made the cost to refurbish the product economically or socially pleasing.

This is illegal, if they refused to repair it because of ‘water damage’. Apple lost a huge lawsuit in Australia wherein they had to admit that their moisture sensors can turn red/pink just from humidity and not necessarily because a device has actually been in water. Because of this admission they are required by law to repair or replace any device which is malfunctioning under warranty regardless of the color of the sensor. If you do some google-fu, you can find documentation of water damage not voiding warranty on Apple’s own site.


1920 x 1200 resolution monitor with VGA not detected by Mac OS X 10.7.2 I recently got a Dell 2412m monitor with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1200.  But in system preferences it only shows 1920 x 1080.  I had it connected, beautifully, to my spare linux machine, so that's not the issue.

How can I get the correct resolution on my display?

Specs:
Dell 2412m
Mac OS X 10.7.2
Connecting with MiniDisplay Port to VGA

You are unlikely to be able use the VGA input to go above 1080p

But just to make sure follow this answer how to view more Resolutions to try with.

MacBook Pro with Retina display (Late 2012) not outputting anything above 1080p

Select the monitor in System Preferences:

System Preferences -> Displays -> Monitor(not Built-in Display) -> Display Tab -> Resolution

Change from 'Best for Display' to 'Scaled' whilst holding the 'alt' key, more resolutions will be listed for you to select,

As noted in the comments, you have to start in the default mode 'Best for Display', and move into 'Scaled' whilst holding the alt/option ⎇ key, not the other way round

Change the different VGA cable, I know this sounds silly but it worked for me


Does the search in Finder need spotlight? I just reinstalled OS X Lion and turned off the spotlight immediately.

I noticed that search in Finder stopped working. Is this because of disabling spotlight? Is there a way to get this back without turn spotlight on? I only need to search by file names.

Finder's search, as well as many other programs (Alfred, Outlook, etc.) use Spotlight's index files. If you have Spotlight shut off, you won't be able to get Finder search working natively.

There are a few free third party apps that you can use to search for files without using Apple's system:

Find Any File
EasyFind

These two do not use spotlight's index files and should work independently.

Spotlight is a search tool. So it needs an index. And that's what's build when there is a little black dot in the Spotlight icon.

It's like an index on a book. It's hard (if not impossible) to find a word without an index. Finder can't look for files if it has no index.

Once Spotlight has build it's index, Finder will be able to search for files. If you want, you can disable it if you want.
BUT, if you do so, new files won't be added to the index, so you won't be able to find them.


Moving files from Desktop to another folder and vice versa using AppleScript (and bash inside of Applescript) inside Automator I need to move files from my desktop to a folder ~/Documents/Desktop migration and I have tried to code a script which will do that. Unfortunately, (and the reason why I'm asking here) it doesn't work.

I am using a service (so that I can go to any application's menu bar > Services > (insert name of service here) ) and need to store the variable data, so I think automator is suited for the job, and I'm using AppleScript and Terminal to move.

What doesn't work is it only transfers files to the desktop from the Desktop Migration folder and not back from the desktop to the Desktop Migration folder, so how can I achieve this?

What I've come up with so far:

on run {input, parameters}
    set theQuery to input
    if theQuery = 1 then
        do shell script "mv ~/Desktop/* ~/Documents/Desktop\\ migration"
        set output to 0
        return output
    else if theQuery = 0 then
        do shell script "mv ~/Documents/Desktop\\ migration/* ~/Desktop"
        set output to 1
        return output
    end if
end run

Thanks!

So it looks like you'er trying to set a flag that toggles each time the Service runs, and there is more than one way to accomplish this.

In this example, I created an Automator Service named Test Service, with the settings shown in the image below, and added a Run Shell Script action, as this is all you should need to accomplish the task since you were using a do shell script AppleScript command anyway to do the work.

As presently coded, each time the Service runs it says what the flag is set to, 0 or 1, and sets it to the opposite. You'd of course remove the say... commands replacing them with the code you want to run based on the setting of the flag.

#!/bin/bash

file="$HOME/Library/Services/Test Service.workflow"

flag="$(xattr -l "$file" | awk '/com.TestService.flag/{print $2}')"

if [[ $flag -eq 0 ]]; then
    # Do something...

    say "flag is currently set to 0, setting flag to 1"

        # Set flag to 1.
    xattr -w com.TestService.flag 1 "$file"
else
    # Do something else...

    say "flag is currently set to 1, setting flag to 0"

        # Set flag to 0.
    xattr -w com.TestService.flag 0 "$file"
fi

This uses xattr to set an extended attribute on the Automator's Service .workflow file and it is this that is read each time and changed each time the Service is run and this is the flag to determine which branch of the if statement runs in the script.

You can either manually set the com.TestService.flag using xattr in Terminal before you run the saved Automator's Service so as to have the extended attribute applied to is .workflow file or if you just run the saved Automator's Service the first time is will set it to 1 as it reads the empty flag variable the first time as being equal to 0.

The following output from Terminal shows the extended attributes of the Automator's Service .workflow file when it was first saved, it just had the com.apple.FinderInfo attribute set, and then the Service was run a couple of times to show that the com.TestService.flag attribute was set and changed each time the Service was run. (I manually ran the xattr command before and then in-between each time I ran the Service to have this output to show.)

$ xattr -l "$HOME/Library/Services/Test Service.workflow"
com.apple.FinderInfo:
00000000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000010  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000020
$ xattr -l "$HOME/Library/Services/Test Service.workflow"
com.apple.FinderInfo:
00000000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000010  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000020
com.TestService.flag: 1
$ xattr -l "$HOME/Library/Services/Test Service.workflow"
com.apple.FinderInfo:
00000000  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000010  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000020
com.TestService.flag: 0
$

Obviously you can change the name of the flag from com.TestService.flag to whatever you'd like however remember to change it in the script in all three places, in the awk command and in each xattr command in each branch of the if statement. Also change the name of the file variable as appropriate for the actual name of your Automator Service .workflow file.

Try with a Terminal command, it’s very simple·

Type rsync -av, press once the space bar and drag the folder to the Terminal window. Drag the destination folder to the window and hit Return.

That’s it !.

The original folder (files) remains intact in their position.


Is there a way to automatically forward text messages to email? Is there a way to automatically forward text messages (received on my iPhone) to email?

Not really ideal but I think that you can setup a Google Voice # that will auto forward to both sms and email - https://support.google.com/voice/answer/160203?hl=en

There are many ways to do it, for example you could take a look a the following list of products offering this possibility.

An answer from devnullius on GoogleWave:

  Solutions to automatically forward iPhone SMS text messages to email
  iphone (or at least export as txt pdf csv) Solutions for Windows based
  computers or MacOS / iOS. Also some references to print the iphone
  sms's.

  Some links with information of interest. Solution(s) not (yet) tested.

  http://www.appleiphoneschool.com/2008/12/04/sms2mail-backup-and-sent-texts-to-email/

  http://www.ecamm.com/mac/phoneview/

  http://www.itworld.com/software/63546/how-transfer-sms-iphone-computer

  http://www.trickyways.com/2010/09/how-to-backup-iphone-text-messages-on-windows/

  http://www.iphoneforums.net/forum/iphone-apps-20/txtforward-like-app-8231/

  http://insend.de/

  http://www.iphone-sms.com/

  !!! best bet, for now...
  http://www.mobyware.net/iphone-os/txtforward-get-free-6688.html

Source: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/altoswindows-2k3/s_ZdTE4FiLQ/LyST7e4tXtsJ


Can I recieve messages from someone not in my contacts? Am I able to recieve or send text messages from a android user if I don't save their number and my airdrop is turned on to "contacts only"?

AirDrop and text messages have nothing to do with each other.

AirDrop lets you use your iOS device to send or receive files from nearby users who also have iOS devices.

Text messages are just that - text messages. You use the Messages app to send or receive text messages to or from any cell phone number.

Yes.

Air Drop is a way to share files with people who are nearby.

Text messages are separate. You should receive those from anyone who sends them to you.


How to switch Preview's full screen default setting from "two-pages" to "continuous scroll"? Whenever I open a pdf, Preview.app opens it in "continuous scroll" mode. However, when going into fullscreen mode, it switches to "two-pages" when, really, I want it to use whatever view mode I had it, in this case: "continuous scroll".

Anyone know how to remedy this? Or perhaps suggest an alternative to Preview.app?

I'm on Mavericks OSX 10.9.2.

As you know, per your question, the preferences in the Preview app only apply to documents when first opened. It seems that OS X has a built in default view for full screen documents. I tried a couple things...

I opened a PDF to Full Screen and set the view to Continuous to see if this would stick and that view would be chosen next time I went full screen. Not the case.
I searched every preference file related to Preview (also using 10.9.2) and found no setting even indirectly related to a view setting specifically when in full screen.

I'd say, doing what you want is either not possible at all or at best it'd require getting into a preference setting somewhere you wouldn't want to poke around with. My guess would be it's a setting inside Preview.app's package contents. Fooling around in there can get hairy

As an alternative to setting a new default, the keyboard shortcut to switch to Continuous view is:

CMD+1

So you can just quickly hit that each time you go full screen and the view changes immediately. It's not exactly what you wanted, but it's a very fast alternative.

Hope that helps!

MacJournal is an exceptional blogging application, that I use for gathering snippets because it's far superior to Evernote, that has scalable and editable full screen viewing (light blue and dark grey or whatever combo you wish.  You can drag and drop a PDF or highlight and right click text to add content to a Library.


Is there a GUI for OS X LaunchAgents? I'm a web developer by day and a lot of the software I install on my computer (namely databases and web servers) come with an optional LaunchAgent to automate starting/stopping processes on boot. I'm wondering if there's a GUI for these types of services so I can use the LaunchAgent, then kill the services gracefully. Another great feature would be if I could turn off boot on launch and just use the LaunchAgent to start/stop a service as needed.

This seems to be exactly what you are looking for: LaunchControl

launchAgents are there to run in the background in conjunction with their respective Daemon, i.e. they have no GUI but you can load & unload them using terminal using:

launchctl unload -S Aqua /Library/launchAgents/"launchAgent's name"

"lanuchAgent's name" : enter the file name of the Agent you want to load/unload.
/Library/launchAgents in OS X that is the default folder for Agents
to load just replace unload with load


How to move text up/down in Notes using keyboard shortcut? I want to move text up/down in Notes via the keyboard. I know it is possible in xcode with ⌘ + ⌥ + [ or ⌘ + ⌥ + ]. But it doesn't work in Notes. Any ideas?

This should be possible using Cocoa bindings - see this answer:

https://superuser.com/a/283948/659069

--

The example below (taken from the link above) binds a 'move line down' shortcut to Opt-DownArrow - you should be able to modify this to meet your needs.

Create the file ~/Library/Keybindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict and enter the following:

{
    "~\UF701" = (
        "moveToBeginningOfLine:",
        "deleteToEndOfLine:",
        "deleteForward:",
        "moveDown:",
        "yank:",
        "insertNewline:",
        "moveUp:"
    );
}

This will add the shortcut Opt-DownArrow for a line-swap command (with the line below) to every application supporting the Cocoa text system.

I think there is no shortcut for that in Mac. And it should have this function.


Does downloading big files reduce my SSD lifetime significantly? I love downloading movies from the internet, and download files with sizes usually around 600 MB - 1 GB.

I have a MacBook Pro with a Retina display, which comes with an SSD. Will downloading and saving it to directly to my SSD reduce my Mac's SSD lifetime significantly? Should I buy an another external HDD for this hobby?

No, not at all. People underestimate the lifetime of SSDs. They can write a lot (usually around 700+ TB before clunking out).

This is a good place to find out more about how long SSDs actually last..

In fact, if you'd like to see more stats on your SSD, this tells you how to install smartmontools to get an idea of your drive's status.

As for your second question, I would say that's entirely up to you. If you'd like to avoid having large files cluttering your limited SSD space then go ahead with the HDD purchase.

If you're doing it for the movies only, you will be better of with some NAS or the likes that let's you have an instance of JDownloader (Headless) and some Torrent client in order to download those movies while your macbook is asleep. It has also the advantage of being ampliable if it has let's say 3 bays and you use only one in the beginning. You also have some 8TB HDDisks which purpose is basically for Archiving, they use a new tech that crams more data in the same physical space, so they have a more limited read/write speed and life cycle, but if you only save the movies, and then maybe watch them once, or revisit occassionally, you should be fine with it.

Another cool option would be a Seedbox with Plex Server installed, you can even share with your family and have your own Netflix without that much hassle.

PS: I actually move the data out of the rMBP SSD after downloading, but prefer to download it in the SSD because it let's me juice up my 200mb symmetrical connection with no hassle, doing that with a regular HDD, not so easy.


Macbook Pro won't shut down I recently bought the 13"Macbook Pro retina (mid 2014). When I try to shut the laptop down, it doesn't work. I tried by manually closing all open applications but nothing happens when I press Apple Menu > Shutdown. I also tried by pressing control+option+cmd+off but same results.

To find out which app is preventing the shutdown use

alt + cmd + esc

Try to force quit it from that screen.

If all fails hold the Power button for 10 seconds.

That is the most crude way to shut down and as last option.

This works if all else fails:

sudo shutdown


How do I move a contact on the iPhone from one group to another? I have about 20 contacts on my iPhone that is in the wrong group. How can I move them to another group?

I had the same problem. I found this page looking or a solution. I wasn't satisfied with the above. So I did the following:

Email the contacts to yourself (share contact).
In the contacts app, make sure you are in the proper group (for me, my gmail account with exchange)
Import the contact. It should be adde to the group you selected in the previous step.
Now go check the contact is in the correct group, and if so, delete the one in the old group.

I am using a free iPhone application to manage groups of contacts.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/easy-group/id461469079?l=fr&ls=1&mt=8


I've added a second HD into my Macbook 2011 instead of CD-ROM. Is it safe to encrypt it using Finder? Years ago I changed my cdrom in my Macbook for a second hard drive, and have been using a SSD as a first drive ever since.

This HD is shown in Finder, and, clicking on it with two fingers, there's an option to encrypt it.

Since this has never been an endorsed upgrade from Apple (changing the cdrom for a HD) I've never used this encrypt option, but now I'm traveling too much because of work and I'm planning to do it if somehow I lose the macbook or it gets stolen.

Does anyone here now of any caveats of this approach? I think this is the same option if you plug an external HD in USB.

I think I'm correct to say it's safe! As Mac OS sees it as a drive you can just use the encryption.

Other people have tested it in Apple Support Comunnities and it seems to work so far.


How to create a link, for multiple users, to a network share, which itself is on a network share? Working Windows-based solution

I've got a folder on a network share which works great in Windows.  It is basically an index of other available file servers.  It looks something like this:

\\server1\directory
    Server2.lnk   <-(links to \\server2\files)
    Server3.lnk   <-(links to \\server3\files)
    Server4.lnk   <-(links to \\server4\files)

I'm trying to replicate this functionality in macOS, but I have run into these problems:

Attempting to use an Alias in macOS

I connected to //server2/files via Finder using Go -> Connect to Server.  Once I was connected in Finder, I created an Alias using for the //server2/files folder.  I then copied that Alias to the //server1/directory location.  The Alias works... as long as I'm using the same computer from which I created the Alias.  But if I try to use it from another mac, it fails.

The other mac doesn't even seem to recognize the file as an Alias file.  It has an icon similar to a terminal icon, and when I double-click it, the mac tells me that there is no Application defined to open the file.  I noticed that the original created Alias file doesn't seem to have any kind of extension, so I'm not sure how a different mac is supposed to recognize it as an Alias file.

The nice thing about a Windows .lnk file is that it seems to work reliably and consistently no matter from what machine the .lnk is accessed, whereas a mac Alias file seems to somehow depend on some configuration of the original machine where it was created.

For example, if I open the Alias file in vi, I can see amongst the garbled code that it includes at least the username used to access the Share, whereas I want each user that clicks on the Alias to access the Share using their own credentials (the mac is joined to AD and users login using their AD credentials).  Again, this works seamlessly with UNC paths and .lnk files.

Attempting to use a terminal script in macOS

I tried to make a simple script that mounts the shares.  So inside //server1/directory I created a file Server2.command with the following content:

mkdir /Volumes/Server2
mount_smbfs //server2/files /Volumes/Server2
cd /Volumes/Server2
open .

My problem with this solution is that I have many servers and many users using the same machine.  One great thing about using the Connect to Server option in Finder is that it seems to automatically "clean up" the /Volumes directory.  After ejecting a share, or after ending a session, it removes the corresponding /Volumes/Sharename folder.  I don't see any way to accomplish the same behavior if I use this terminal-based solution.

Question

Can someone give me a good way to replicate the .lnk functionality I have described above?

I know the Windows links functions via UNC paths, whereas in macOS I can only access these network shares via smb or afp mounts, but since I see that the Connect to Server option pretty much functions how I need it to, I just need a way to use that same functionality, with the caveat that I need to automate it, because I'm not going to ask my Users (I have many Users using the same machine) to each create a Connect to Server Alias manually.

Found the answer.  You must create an .afploc file.  This is similar to an .inetloc file.

The easiest way to create a .afploc file:

open Finder
Go -> Connect to Server
type the address in the Connect to Server window (e.g. afp://server.domain.com/
highlight what you just typed (afp://server.domain.com)
grab what you just highlighted and drag it to the desktop (or any folder, presumably) and release
a file named server.domain.com.afploc should be created automatically on your desktop
you can then copy that file anywhere and it will function to automatically start the Go -> Connect to Server process on any mac computer
you can also rename the file if you want, and you can edit its contents to create other .afploc files that point to other servers or paths
you can also use this same process and substitute an smb:// path.  this creates an .inetloc file which works the same way

My feeling about what you want to achieve in Mac OS (or a Unix) works with a symbolic link.
Finder has functionalities above OS embedded functions. I guess an alias won't work with Terminal / Shell.
Symbolic links are created on the shell but also work transparent in Finder.
Try out the thread
Backup iPhone to external drive on Mac
... this explains symbolic links wonderfully.

Hope, this was what your are looking for!


iMessage Problems with Computer When I updated iOS7 to my iphone, it somehow changed my settings on my computer. So now, whenever I text someone off my Macbook Pro, it sends the message from my email address. How do I change that back to send iMessages from my phone number?

iOS Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > ...Reached at... / Start from...

OSX Messages > Preferences > Accounts > iMessage Account > ...Reached at... / Start from...

The solution above isn't working. The iOS7 update somehow removed my phone number form the iMessage settings on my Mac and I no longer have the option to add the phone number. I tried clicking "add email" and entered a phone number but as soon as I hit 'enter' or 'tab', the phone number is removed automatically.


How to transfer app documents from Mac to iOS on iTunes 12.7 iTunes 12.7 removed the apps section. I've been pushing multi-gigabyte videos from my Mac to my iPad's VLC's application documents folder using iTunes.

How do I transfer app documents from Mac to iOS? (before you ask: AirDrop would be too slow and unreliable for that)

Oh, to answer my own question:

It has been renamed to "File Sharing" on the connected device's tab.

I didn't see it on the first try.

You can download iTunes 12.6 from Apple Here


mail.app missing plug-in Today I opened mail.app and my mail attachments showed up as "missing plug-in". I faced this issue before, at that time I quite the mail.app and opened again were fix the problem. Now that also not working.Please help me to fix this issue.

The Following are the content types in the mail:

Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
Content-Type: multipart/related;
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Type: image/gif Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Type: multipart/related;
Content-Type: text/html;
Content-Type: image/jpeg   Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

This is how my mail look like:

I just had a similar problem and solved it by going to:

System Preferences > Java > Security

and set the security level down to medium.

However I don't find this a very satisfying solution and I wonder why Mail requires Java to display images...

Update:

I assume it actually has nothing to do with Java itself but in some way with the plug-in loading. Maybe changing Java settings does something with the internet plugins... After all, now that my images do appear again, it has no further effect to change the java settings. The images will be displayed regardless of the java security settings. (So I set them back to high)

Maybe another solution is to have the privileges repaired or internet caches cleaned up...

I had this problem in OS X 10.8.5 and the solution was to quit and restart Mail.


How to get the amount of 'Compressed Memory', per process (from Terminal)? How can I use ps, or some variation thereof... to get a value that roughly corresponds to the "Compressed Memory" value Apple reports in Activity Monitor.app?

username 52036 100.1 24.1 8026832 3035512 ?? Rs ...com.apple.WebKit.WebContent

Ok, so it appears ps aux tells us...

3035512, aka 2.83 Gb, which corresponds to "Private Memory"
8026832, aka 7.48 Gb which doesn't seem to correspond to anything. (Although it possibly could be ("Memory" 3.89 + "Private Memory" 2.84 +  "Compressed Memory" 1.05)?

Is there any way "normal" way to access this metric, or is it just some "magic" value Apple has come up with?

There's nothing magic about compressed memory. It's something that was added to 10.9 as one last step before the system swaps RAM out to storage. According to John Siracusa, this serves three major functions:

  Memory compression is a triple play for Mavericks. It’s a performance win; compressing and decompressing data in RAM is much faster than reading from and writing to disk, even an SSD. It’s an energy win; the less time spent moving data between RAM and disk, the more time the system can spend in its idle state. And finally, it’s a capability win; Mavericks can handle much more demanding workloads than previous versions of OS X before crying uncle.

As to getting at the details from the command line - that may be elusive. The overall compression numbers are easy with a pair of tools:

memory_pressure
vm_stat

I don't think any invocation of ps will do the trick, but maybe someone can correct that. You can see the implementation details on this thread: vm_compressor_mode (vm.compressor_mode) values for enabled compressed memory in OS X

The best I can get you is to look at all "swapped and/or compressed" memory using the vmmap command. Basically, before swapping, the memory regions marked for swapping are compressed. If that saves enough space to alleviate the swap algorithm, no swap happens. If not, the compressed regions are swapped to storage.

vmmap -swapped [PID]

You'd have to handle the addition of the regions and I'm not sure if the activity monitor reports all swapped and compressed in the column you mentioned but that's something you might be able to figure out by inspection and/or using Instruments from Xcode to correlate what you see from the command line with activity monitor for some processes.

ActivityMonitor: click the Memory button, then choose CompressedMemory column.


How can I find color codes on Mac? I used to find color codes which I want to use for texts or background colors on htmls with color edit tool of MS paint which pre-installed on Windows.
But now I use Mac instead of Windows.
How can I find color codes with Mac?
Is an software like MS paint pre-installed on Mac?

There is a utility (in Applications/Utilities) called Digital Color Meter, which shows the color code of whatever you're hovering at the moment. It's a bit more lightweight than Preview. There are also shortcuts for copying the color value as a string (⇧+⌘+C) or image (⌥+⌘+C).

There is an App called Preview pre-installed where you can get the colors from.


Where are my photos stored? I am new to OS X. In my About this Mac -> Storage, I have 21GB of photos. However, I have checked the Photos application and there are nothing in it.

I am not sure where these photos are stored as I don't usually use this computer for storing photos. I guess they might have been imported when I plugged in my iPhone, somehow. What is the best way to track them down?

In the Finder, under the File menu, select "Find" (Command+F). In the window that opens, leave the first pulldown menu at "Kind", go to the next pulldown and select "Image" then hit enter. Assuming you set the search to "This Mac," the Finder will then list every image file on your computer, allowing you to see exactly where they are.

Try using the shortcut Command+Space to open search and type "Pictures".  The result you want to click on should be the second or third result.

Another method is to open Finder and navigate to the Pictures directory in your home folder.


OS X Mail Mavericks 10.9 Gmail accounts NOT in sync In OS X Mavericks 10.9.2 after doing all the updates my Gmail accounts still show messages that are in the inbox but when I login to gmail on the browser, they aren't there.

Is there a way to fix this? I don't remember this happening before. I am using IMAP.

I use IMAP on OS X and use the exchange setup on my phone/iPad. All my accounts are gmail.

Try "Get Account Info" by right-clicking on the mailbox, which will force Mail to search through the IMAP account for messages and seems to rebuild all mailboxes in the account.

See this answer for further suggestions if that fails.

The only thing that worked for me: enabling 2-step authentication with gmail.


macOS Mojave stacks not grouping by type I have updated my MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017) with macOS Mojave and everything is woking as per the need.

But I think new feature of macOS Mojave called Stacks is not working properly on my MacBook when I set Group Stacks By to Kind.

It just create one group with name Other and puts everything (Image, Doc, ZIP, Video) in that one group.

I tried changing Group Stacks and restarting my mac but no luck.

Is there any other setting for this which I am missing?

I have same issue when I change System Preference->Spotlight setting.

From Monitor App, I found Spotlight progress takes a lot of memory, so I disable some options from Spotlight setting's *Search Results*, and then Desktop Stacks with those types disappear.

So, re-enable the expected type in Spotlight setting, the type will show on Desktop.

I finally got this to work:

I had to to a PRAM reset.

Shutdown your mac
Unplug all devices
Power On and immediately hold down Command + Option + P + R for at least 10 seconds
Login again and activate stacks (rightclick on desktop, use stacks)