macOS: Does activating iCloud preserve "Pictures" folder structure? On macOS I have my photos manually organised into folders within the main "Pictures" folder; I don't use Photos or any kind of picture management app.

If I turn in iCloud storage for Photos will it preserve that folder structure in "Pictures"? Or does it all need to be managed by the Photos app in order to sync to iCloud?

It turns out that pictures on iCloud work with the Photos app; photos are "special" and you don't sync the Pictures folder in the same way items on iCloud drive are synced. In order to sync photos to iCloud you need to use the Photos app and copy when importing. If you import photos in-place from an unmanaged location they will not be synced to iCloud.

The application works only with photos saved on iPhotos


How to investigate high kernel task memory usage? I was using my MacBook Pro (with 16GB of RAM) as usual and out of blue I've this popup that:

Your system has run out of application memory.
To avoid problems with your computer, quit any applications you are not using.

I've obviously closed few which I could, but it didn't help.
After checking on memory, it seems kernel task ate 7GB and 22.36GB swap memory was used of total 23GB (which obviously was the case). However I've still 20GB of space free on my SDD.

Activity Monitor didn't help much whilst my OS X was heading to the destruction.

My top stats before my kernel freeze:
Processes: 344 total, 2 running, 5 stuck, 337 sleeping, 2580 threads                                                                                19:23:56
Load Avg: 1.56, 1.62, 2.09  CPU usage: 3.51% user, 8.47% sys, 88.1% idle   SharedLibs: 46M resident, 0B data, 6572K linkedit. MemRegions: 757970 total, 2139M resident, 56M private, 907M shared.
PhysMem: 9410M used (6198M wired), 556M unused. VM: 1155G vsize, 1311M framework vsize, 112872658(320) swapins, 122668389(0) swapouts. Networks: packets: 299419263/363G in, 142126838/14G out.
Disks: 58970173/1079G read, 20012389/1120G written.

At the end my OS X frozen and I had to do hard reset, repair my SDD in recovery mode and fixing afterwards (recovering lost work, fixing application conflicts, checking my lost+found folder, Chrome/Terminal tabs gone, headache, etc.).
My question is, how do I check on high memory usage of kernel task or how to properly deal with that kind of situation? I've tried to take Sample with Activity Monitor, but it's greyed out.

My MacBook Pro details:
2.3GHz Intel Core i7 (late 2013) with 16GB RAM. OS X: 10.9.5

There are many things that go wrong with high kernel task usage. Usually this is related to faulty or heavy process which overusing system resources (such as indexing storage, running VMs, too many tabs in the web browser or some other background processes).

Here are some methods which help to investigate OS X kernel usage issues:

Basic methods

Run Console.app and check on 'All Messages' to see if anything unusual currently is happening.
Use Activity Monitor to read system memory and determine how much CPU, RAM and Disk is being used.

Alternatively run top in Terminal and hold Space to refresh - easier to find the cause problem (swapins/swapouts/disks?).
Run sudo fs_usage in Terminal to report system calls and page faults related to filesystem activity in real-time (I think this is the best option from all other). Then hit Control-C to stop it.

Action: Consider killing apps which appears frequently on the list, but you're not using them.

Learn more at: How do I debug an out-of-control “kernel_task” process?
Run sudo syscallbypid.d (or syscallbyproc.d), wait a bit, hit Control-C. Now check which process generated the most system calls in that given time (last column) and if you recognise it, consider kill it. If not, Google it and learn more about it.

Advanced methods

Use sysdiagnose command (can be triggered by hitting Shift-Control-⌥-⌘-. (period) to quickly gather system-wide diagnostic information helpful in investigating system memory/performance issues (will appear in /var/tmp) either by you or Apple guys. During analysis, try to not do anything, when done - consider uncompressing the generated file and analyse the logs.

See: How do you get system diagnostic files from OS X?
Run footprint to gather detailed memory information on a per-VM-region type level and swapped bytes:

sudo footprint -a

Older version:

sudo footprint -all -categories -swapped -collapseSharing

Use spindump to profile entire system, it'll generate /tmp/spindump.txt file (including kernel and its extensions).
Use vm_stat to show virtual memory statistics. E.g.

vm_stat 1 # to display every second.

Use zprint to check information about kernel usage, it's possible by:

sudo zprint -t -s | head -n20

It'll show the most wasting kernel zones.
Use newproc.d to snoop new processes as they are executed, creatbyproc.d for files:

sudo newproc.d
sudo creatbyproc.d

Note: On newer OS X (10.11 or above) this may not work when integrity protection is enabled (check by csrutil status).
Try sar - system activity reporter which can sample and report various cumulative statistic counters maintained by the operating system.

For more useful debugging tools, check for dtrace scripts (grep dtrace /usr/bin/*). If you know the faulty process which causing the problem, you may use dtruss to debug it.

Actions

Here are some suggestions which can help you with the operating system issues.

Free up some inactive memory. In order to do this, you've to flush cache first and force disk cache to be purged:

sync && sudo purge

  sync - force completion of pending disk writes (flush cache)

  purge - force disk cache to be purged (flushed and emptied)

Its function is basically to terminate all the I/O pending operations which are using disk cache and then to free all the occupied disk cache, so it should free disk space to ease paging out and swapping out of main memory. It is safe to use, as it does not affect anonymous memory that has been allocated through malloc, vm_allocate, etc.
Use some 3rd party apps to clear up some overused memory such as iBoostUp, SystemPal, etc.
You may also disable temporary Spotlight:

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

And consider other services by:

sudo launchctl list | grep ^[0-9]
sudo launchctl bslist | grep ^A

Quit your web browser and check if that helps. For example using Chrome is very resourceful, especially when there is some front-end processing going on in the background (e.g. Javascript) or advert-like animations are constantly rendering the content.

I had a very similar issue after replacing my LCD screen on a late 2012 iMac. Fan was running at high RPM and had high CPU Kernel_task usage. I narrowed it down to a Temperature sensor you must move from the old LCD screen to the new replacement screen. if you forget to do so the CPU speed and Kernel_task are affected slowing down your system.


Locked file is stuck in trash I have a file in my Trash.  The filename is 'codedesign' and it is a Unix executable file.  This file ended up there in the process of me trying to fix a corrupted patch installer.  The original version is still in my /usr/bin/ directory and therefore this one would be fine to delete.

The situation looks like this, the file is the only thing that is in my Trash.  When I click empty trash it doesn't show an error message, but it doesn't delete the file.
When I right click the file and select 'Delete Immediately...'  it asks me for my password then comes up with the error message 'The operation can’t be completed because you don’t have permission to access some of the items.'

The file permissions say that my user has 'Read & Write' while the Wheel user has 'Read'.  I can't change any permissions without getting an error message saying that I don't have permission to make changes.

I can't put the file back as this option isn't available when I right click.  When I try and drag the file out of the trash it simply makes a copy.

I've tried using the app Trash It! as well as CleanMyMac3 But these do nothing.

The results of the following terminal commands used so far:

$ sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash/*
rm: /Users/JamieMacLeod/.Trash/codesign: Operation not permitted
$ ls -ald ~/.Trash/*
-rwxr-x--x@ 1 JamieMacLeod wheel 86032 31 Oct 2014 /Users/JamieMacLeod/.Trash/codesign
$ xattr -l /Users/JamieMacLeod/.Trash/codesign
com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms:
00000000  62 70 6C 69 73 74 30 30 A2 01 02 5F 10 62 68 74  |bplist00..._.bht|
00000010  74 70 3A 2F 2F 64 63 36 35 33 2E 34 73 68 61 72  |tp://dc653.4shar|
00000020  65 64 2E 63 6F 6D 2F 64 6F 77 6E 6C 6F 61 64 2F  |ed.com/download/|
00000030  6A 4C 69 4C 4F 68 38 54 63 65 2F 63 6F 64 65 73  |jLiLOh8Tce/codes|
00000040  69 67 6E 2E 68 74 6D 6C 3F 74 73 69 64 3D 32 30  |ign.html?tsid=20|
00000050  31 34 31 30 33 31 2D 30 32 34 34 33 33 2D 34 32  |141031-024433-42|
00000060  62 64 39 64 63 64 26 6C 67 66 70 3D 32 30 30 30  |bd9dcd&lgfp=2000|
00000070  5F 10 33 68 74 74 70 3A 2F 2F 77 77 77 2E 34 73  |_.3http://www.4s|
00000080  68 61 72 65 64 2E 63 6F 6D 2F 67 65 74 2F 6A 4C  |hared.com/get/jL|
00000090  69 4C 4F 68 38 54 63 65 2F 63 6F 64 65 73 69 67  |iLOh8Tce/codesig|
000000A0  6E 2E 68 74 6D 6C 08 0B 70 00 00 00 00 00 00 01  |n.html..p.......|
000000B0  01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000000C0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 A6                       |.........|
000000c9
com.apple.quarantine: 0001;5543f6cd;Google\x20Chrome;0F73411A-982E-4A8A-B099-93610324B751

$ ls -lO@ /Users/JamieMacLeod/.Trash/codesign
-rwxr-x--x@ 1 JamieMacLeod  wheel  restricted 86032 31 Oct  2014 /Users/JamieMacLeod/.Trash/codesign
com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms      201
com.apple.quarantine       67

I'm really not sure what to do that this point, surely there is a way to delete one file?  I am the only user on this computer and therefore should have full admin rights.

Any help with this would be very much appreciated.

The group is showing as restricted - this may indicate that it's due to SIP.

Try: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30768087/restricted-folder-files-in-os-x-el-capitan tells you how to temporarily disable SIP to delete the file.

Could also try sudo chown [owner]:[group]? (Although if it is SIP, I don't think that it's this easy to get around).


How to get old Spotlight Search View back for Yosemite? I do not like Yosemite's default Spotlight search.
It is in the middle of screen and I can see very little outputs at once.
It is so much helpful when it is full screen.

Example of the window which has limited height and central location:

How can you change the location be at the top right corner and height of the hits full height?

As of today there is no way to move/resize the spotlight window or to rollback to the previous spotlight (as seen on older OSXs)

I would suggest giving a feedback to Apple about this.

You don't need "old spotlight" it still exists - just do a spotlight search and then scroll down to the bottom of the documents list on the left until you get to "Show all in finder" and (Fx: roll on the drums) magically old spotlight's results will appear!


Is it safe to delete python and pip versions 2 and 3 Considering mac only requires version 2.7 of python, and any version of 3, is it safe to delete to delete pip2, pip3, and python3 completely from my mac when I have v3.9 and v2.7. I found them in this folder /usr/local/bin

Probably, yes, since it's in /usr/local/bin (and so aren't the macOS system versions of python). However, you probably shouldn't just delete the executables from that directory, but the whole installation. The details of this will depend on how you did the installation, for example from Python.org, or homebrew, or anaconda.

The system version of python2 does not come with pip by default. You can either install pip by itself, or it gets installed if you've installed a newer version of python2.7 from python.org.
However: modules installed by pip2 for use by other python2 installations can also be accessed by the system python. pip itself is very small, but deleting it won't remove the modules.
In short, whichever version of python2 you keep, it's useful to keep pip as well, if you plan to install any third-party modules.


How to Show Virtual Keyboard in El Capitan? I changed to El Capitan and I cannot find anymore the virtual keyboard about testing keyboard's keys visually.
It is normally in the right hand corner under the keyboard switcher icon.
I need the tool to review specific characters of OS X Keyboards, since I am typing many of them.

How can you have the virtual keyboard in OS X El Capitan?

System Prefs > Keyboard > Keyboard > Show Keyboard, Emoji & Symbol viewers in menu bar.

in my case when i checked "show keyboard- and character bla bla" nothing happens what so ever. No onscreen-keyboard?? I also run El Capitan...

ah never mind, my mistake. It's Yosemite i do run, not El Capitan. but still there's no keyboard Viewer showing?

SOLUTION 4 SHOWING THE ONSCREEN-KEYBOARD:
move mouse to upper part of the screen and right-click the language flag icon to actually show the onscreen-keyboard.


Do apps on jailbroken iOS devices have uncontrolled access to all my data? I'm thinking about jailbreaking my iOS device but one thing worries me. Apple's restrictive developer API has one big advantage: apps can't tinker with my data outside the app unless I allow them to.

Can apps on jailbroken iOS devices access my e-mails, iTunes account password (through keylogging) and other sensitive information without my consent?

Yes. Any jailbreak-only app could potentially do everything you describe because they can acquire root access and run outside of iOS's sandbox.

No, they could not, assuming you choose an appropriately difficult root password. If an app 'silently' attempted to gain root access and provided other capability in order to be accepted into the official App Store it would have a better chance to gain root. A crucial factor in an answer to this sort of question is proper choice of passwords. If there are exploits that do not require root password, then ignore the negative answer.


How to set No Access (restrict) permission to a user on a folder? I'm trying to deny my user access to a certain folder. I can't.

I set an admin account to be the owner of that folder, but i can't set "No Access" for any user on that folder. But i can do it for "everyone".

What i really want to do is cut myself off from a certain folder (the old xcode apps) without having to delete them and empty trash, i want to keep them, but make sure my user can't access any files in that location anyway, unless i override it again.

So these are two questions, but i expect my first question to be answered. Maybe there is a way i can do that through command line, which i'm still not sure, but is there a way using the OSx interfaces?

Thank you

You could set the folder to have the following permissions to deny access from yourself, do this with your admin user:

Everyone: No Access
admin user: Read & Write

After this delete the line with your own user, so that you fall under the group "Everyone". This way only the admin user has an exception to the "no access" rule.

Just put a dot first in the folder name. Volla folder gone. :giggling:

But as onik said just set the access for everyone to no access and allow for admin user:

sudo -u adminuser chmod /dir/to/folder 700


Macbook Pro Upgrade - 16GB RAM or 128GB SSD I am asking myself which constellation is better: should I stock up my RAM up to 16GB (from 8GB), or should I buy a SSD with 128GB??

I really dont know :/

Cheers!

BTW: My macbook supports 16GB RAM, i already checked this ;)

RAM upgrade above 8GB if...

you do run Virtual Machines excessively because you need to allocate a lot of RAM to the virtual OS
Other than that, this will most likely not be necessary. Mac OS X operates very efficient with 8GB of RAM. If you do not run VMs, there will  be no increase in performance in most cases!

SSD upgrade if...

you want a snappier response throughout the system.
you run big programs such as Adobe or photo editing software that take long to load.
you need faster boot/shut down/sleep times.
if you carry your MBP around a lot. SSDs are very shock resistent. No mechanical parts move.
if you want a more quiet MBP.

SSDs also consume less power. But you won't notice it significantly.
Think of this:
In today's computers, the bottle-neck of processing is usually the hard drive. Processors generally need to wait for the hard drive's read/write operations which are a lot slower. Thus a faster hard drive is needed for a better overall performance in processing. RAM won't help if the needed amount is saturated.

Correct me if i'm wrong but RAM upgrade which basically meaning is your physical memory, when upgraded, can help you have little less number of page faults..During the time when page translation takes place the logical address space needs to map the active processes onto the RAM i.e. physical memory based on the page table and page size of all those running processes. Now, consider a 32 bit processor which will have 2^32 logical addresses( worth 4GB) will have to have 4GB worth of RAM for absolute performance. Theoretically that means no virtual memory wud be necessary since the RAM alone wud capable enough to handle the processes when the page translation takes place (from logical address to physical address).This scenario is very much achievable (atleast theoretically) in case of 32 bit processors as the maximum no. of pages created is worth 4GB.A quick 4GB upgrade should fix the problem leaving virtually no possiblity of a page fault
 Now take modern processors having 64 bit architectures. Having a 64 bit processor means the total no. of logical addresses created wud be 2^64 i.e. whopping '16 million GB'. This is almost unthinkable beyond quantification. In order to handle these '16 million GB' logical addresses and map them to the physical memory u wud literally have to have a RAM module worth the eiffel tower or even empire state building.This is in no way possible to implement. What we wud need and have to heavily rely on wud be a virtual memory management model which relies on storage memory(typically HDDs).Upgrading from 4GB to 8GB worth of RAM(and having a slow HDD) so as to handle '16 million GB' worth of page translation wud be a teeny tiny modification though some processes wud definitely loaded faster or some heavy apps cud become snappier and more performant since no. of page faults gets reduced to quite some extent.In order to overcome these page faults the logical address wud definitely have to rely on HDDs (thru virtual memory mechanism). Having an efficient virtually memory mechanism is gonna be almost the only dependable feature for overall system performance. *Surely a RAM upgrade wud help but not as much as a switch from traditional HDDs to SSDs.**No matter what you do, you wud have to depend on virtual memory  so you better think of having a greating storage memory..* As far as SSDs go, they surely are fit for the battle. You will still have a lot of page faults but let the SSDs take care of it.
  What is page fault??
Well,your logical address spaces are in the form of pages and these pages are to be mapped onto the physical memory(RAM).Some of these pages are not able to be mapped due some reason such as memory constraints. This means those processes (in the form of pages) do not get a 1-1 correspondence with the RAM.This is a page fault. Otherwise, there wud be a page hit.Due to existence of page faults which is kinda inevitable we do address translation(mapping) with storage memory instead.This is virtual memory management.No matter how much RAM you put,your storage memory will be key player in m/m management unless you get yourself '16 million GB' of RAM.
  Criticisms are welcome..


Mail.app stopped working after upgrade to OS X Mavericks Mail.app is not working since the upgrade to OS X Mavericks. I read that I should try to uncheck SSL. However it won't let me. All my emails just sit in the outbox. Is there a way to remedy this or is there another mail software I can download?

I'm using Gmail which I know has types of issues and have accepted that but it's my business POP emails that is frustrating me.

I've switched to Postbox for my mail client until some of the Apple Mail glitches get worked out. Postbox seems to be built on the Thunderbird engine (which also works well) but it adds additional features. I use multiple Gmail and IMAP accounts, but I don't currently use any POP accounts -- based on past experience with Thunderbird I wouldn't expect any problems.

As an alternative email client, you can try Thunderbird. It supports many features Mail.app lacks but it's not as polished for OSX as Mail.


How to switch between different Chrome windows with keyboard shortcuts? Switching between applications is easy with command-tab.

Switching between tabs is easy with command-} or control-tab.

Switching between separate windows within an application is easy with command-`.

However, that last one doesn't seem to work with Google Chrome (Version 27.0.1453.110) on OS X 10.8.4. Is there a leopard shortcut specific for Chrome to switch between different windows?

⌘ Cmd+` works for me with the same versions of Chrome and OS X, so it might be something specific to your installation.

You could try temporarily resetting Chrome's preferences or disabling extensions. Or change the shortcut from System Preferences or test if it works on a different account.

I'm using Mavericks and CMD+` does not work for me. However, CMD+. does.


Mac OS stuck after login This screen came after I entered my credentials to login, and stayed here for a long time. I have tried reinstalling the os and clearing nvram, tried booting into safe mode and run diagnostics and tried updating the OS, but nothing has worked. How do I get to log in?

Try creating a new admin user (follow the steps below) and see if this new user can login without this problem. If the new account also experiences the problem I suggest using Recovery Mode to install a new copy of macOS/OS X as it could be a problem with a preference file or other system resource.

Start up the Mac whilst holding down ⌘-S. After a few moments, you'll see the Mac boot to the command line.
The following command will check the filesystem to ensure there are no problems. Enter:

/sbin/fsck -fy

The next command will then mount the filesystem for it to be accessible:

/sbin/mount -uw /

With the filesystem mounted and accessible, it's time to remove the file so OS X will re-run Setup Assistant:

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone

After that, simply enter reboot and your Mac will restart and boot normally. Only this time, Setup Assistant will launch.

Create the new admin user and continue through the setup process then sign in as this user.

To re-install macOS/OS X follow these steps:

Restart your Mac whilst holding down Command (⌘)-R to startup in OS X Recovery
Select Reinstall macOS (or OS X, if your using an older OS) from the options displayed and follow the steps presented

This process does not delete the original System nor does it delete your user accounts or personal data. All existing user accounts will continue to work as before and all personal data will be left intact. Some applications may require reinstallation if using this process as they sometimes install elements of their resources in the /Library folder.

This question Macbook Pro stuck after I enter my password provided a solution for me by deleting some .csstore files.


How to make the "Page Down" key on the keyboard move only half the distance as usual I'm a computer programmer and use Xcode so I am constantly scrolling up and down. Often times I would like to move the page down but not as much as the "Page Down" keyboard key moves it. I would like to move it half the distance as it usual moves. I feel like I have experimented with every combination of "Page Down" with shift, option, control, command, and fn. Also, I used all those controls with the down arrow keys with no success.

Maybe I missed something? Is this even possible? I use a program called Dragon Dictation that accepts AppleScript so if somebody knows how to code this so I can use it in Dragon Dictation it would be very helpful.

SOLUTION:

Dragon Dictation is no longer supported. I'm using Apple's built-in dictation.

I created the AppleScript code in Script Editor:

tell application "System Events"
    key code 125
    key code 125
    key code 125
    key code 125
end tell

Then from Accessibility > Dictation > Dictation Commands, I create a word and in the "Perform" drop down box select Run Workload, and select the AppleScript file using the code above that was created in Script Editor.

As answered in the question linked to by klanomath's comment, ControllerMate can be used to set up keybindings that simulate scrolling an arbitrary amount.

However, this approach has limitations:

The ControllerMate approach does not take into account the height of the window being scrolled; it advances a fixed distance on its virtual scroll wheel. So this workaround only works well if all the windows you wish to scroll are always the same height.
The default behavior of Page Up & Page Down, as well as Home and End, cannot be overridden in Chrome, at least. It only works if you add a modifier key. Being able to override existing single-key behavior is very desirable, since the whole point of this is to optimize something that is done very frequently.

(Oops! I placed a bounty on this question worth 100 reputation points, not realizing that the points would be "escrowed" and that since I'm not a frequent user of apple.stackexchange.com, I would then not have enough reputation points to comment. Otherwise I might have just commented after klanomath. I'm not attempting to win my own bounty by answering... Hoping someone else can come up with an approach that overcomes the limitations mentioned above.)

this may not help, but there are some wireless mouses that when you use the scroller (or whatever you call it) it jumps like 5-10 lines down. It's a bit annoying sometimes, but it may help you. I don't know any specific brands but you should be able to search it online.


How to remove a book from iBooks I "bought" a free book on iBooks Store, the book is on my iCloud.
Now I would to remove it, but I cannot find a way to do it.

On a Mac, open the iBooks app.
Go to the iBooks Store (left of the toolbar, at the top).
On the right-hand-side, in the Quick Links list, click the Purchased link.
Books will appear; find the one you want to remove and hover your mouse over the cover.
A little 'x' will appear; click it to remove the book.

The book will no longer come up in iBooks (or any other locations), no matter whether you have set iBooks to show or hide iCloud items.

To Delete a book from  the iBook library :

Click on iBooks
Click on the desired book you want deleted (But be sure the book does not pop up )
Now right click , Click on delete

Now The Book Is Deleted


Does a driver exist to step up a PC USB 3.0 port to charge an iPad at 12W? The iPad Retina requires 12W to charge.

It appears the Mac has special non-usb-standard drivers that step up the USB 3.0 port to provide the extra power for charging.

My question is: Does a driver exist to step up a PC USB 3.0 port to charge an iPad at 12W?

Your motherboard may have a firmware update to enable it, or add-in driver on the install CD/DVD

Ref - iPad displays “Not Charging” when plugged into USB ports. What can I do?

No.

The iPad charger DOES NOT use a standard USB port, but uses the USB connector to provide a "dedicated charging port". The standard based DCP can supply a maximum of 1.5A. In fact the Apple charger is a non standard device and can supply up to 2A, which it indicates to the device by specific voltages on the data pins.

A USB port supporting data is limited to 900mA.


Create hybrid MBR/GPT just like Bootcamp Assistant does Currently I have two partitions with data on them I would like to keep (marked with a *):

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *250.1 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh SSD*          164.2 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS Additional_Storage*      56.6 GB   disk0s4
   5:       Microsoft Basic Data                          28.4 GB   disk0s5

Now I would like to install Windows on /dev/disk0s5. However, since the partition is GPT Windows cannot be installed. Is there a way to create my own MBR/GPT hybrid like the Bootcamp-Assistant does? /dev/disk0s5 would then be MBR and the rest still GPT.

Output of sudo fdisk /dev/disk0:

Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 30401/255/63 [488397168 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -  488397167] <Unknown ID>
 2: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused

Output of sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0:

      start       size  index  contents
          0          1         PMBR
          1          1         Pri GPT header
          2         32         Pri GPT table
         34          6
         40     409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
     409640  320702320      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  321111960    1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  322381496        328
  322381824  110616584      4  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
  432998408       2040
  433000448   55396352      5  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
  488396800        335
  488397135         32         Sec GPT table
  488397167          1         Sec GPT header

My system:

MacBook Pro 2011, OS X El Capitan

The problem is not that you don't have an MBR.  The problem is that an MBR can only have 4 partition entries.  On an out-of-the-box fresh install of OS X, you'd be using 3 of those partition entries already; one for the EFI partition, one for the Mac HFS partition, and one for the recovery partition.  That leaves only one MBR slot available for the Boot Camp Assistant to work with in order to install Windows.

In your situation, you have an additional Data partition called "Additional Storage" that is taking up the 4th slot.  Since your Windows partition is the 5th partition on the disk, the MBR cannot handle this, nor does the Boot Camp Assistant know what to do in this scenario, so it refuses to work.

The solution is to manually use fdisk to make your partition table look like this:

Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 30401/255/63 [488397168 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
         Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [         1 -     409639] <Unknown ID>
 2: AF 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [    409640 -  320702320] HFS+
 3: AB 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 322381824 -  110616584] HFS+
 4: 07 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [ 433000448 -   55396352] HPFS/QNX/AUX

What I have done here is used the sector numbers from your output of the gpt command to show you what your MBR partition table should look like.  If you look closely, I have omitted the recovery partition from the table (since it's generally useless and you'd likely want to access your Additional Storage partition while running Windows).

To make these changes, use fdisk -e /dev/disk0 to enter fdisk in interactive mode.  You can issue a ? command to get a list of the available commands you'll need to do the modifications.

Also, when fdisk asks you if you want to edit in CHS mode, say no.  Don't worry about the cyl/hd/sec values.  They won't have the same numbers for you as they do in my table above, but it doesn't matter.

A few words of warning here:
This layout is horribly unsupported by both Apple and Windows. Having the GPT and MBR partition tables disagree with each other is an error as far as OS X is concerned, and there is a 650MB gap between partitions 2 and 3 as far as Windows is concerned.

Do not EVER under ANY circumstances use any partitioning tools to adjust/repartition your disk from this point on.  Best case scenario: it'd just give you an error.  Worst case scenario: it'd destroy the entire disk.
Make sure you do not use Disk Utility to "repair" your disk. Always make sure you have a partition selected when doing First Aid, not the disk itself.
Do not use whole-disk encryption software (BitLocker or FileVault). These require additional support partitions and will attempt to repartition the drive.
Do not convert your disks to Dynamic (Windows) or CoreStorage (Mac) volumes.  These will modify the partition tables also.

You can use following guide http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html
and choose only the entries 2 and 5 from the GPT table to build the hybrid MBR.


How can I save images that are on an iPhone but not in iCloud? I have an iPhone 4 with 1275 photos in the "all Photos" folder.
In the connected iCloud only 114 are shown.
As we wish to replace the phone with a newer one we would like to save all 1275 images from the phone.
Connected to iTunes about 600 are shown. All images previous to March 2015 are not shown in iTunes.
Those image show a small exclamation mark in the bottom corner when looked at it on the iphone.
We tried connecting to Dropbox without success. Also sending the images via email.

What can we do to save the images from the old phone?

Try the following:
Connect your iPhone with your Mac and start "Image Capture" for importing photos.

In general, the circled explanation mark indicates that those photos have not been loaded from iCloud. It may download with network connection (mostly Wi-Fi only). If there are no photos on iCloud this might be because of file corruption on iCloud.

Also, iOS support for iPhone 4 stopped with iOS 7.1.2 - iCloud Photo library needs iOS 8.3 or newer. Your device therefore only supports iCloud My Photo Stream which only contains your newest pictures. There is no chance for your full library to be synced with iCloud.
(This does not count for iPhone 4s which supports iOS 9.3.5)

One last thing: Make sure photos are not indicated as "Transferred from Mac" (transferred photos can not be saved on any other Mac as the original source and won´t be shown on your current Mac).

Hopefully you´ll be able to access your photos. I hope these information may help you to understand your situation. Good luck!

Try installing Google Photos and backing them up with that app.


How to determine if my 2015 MacBook Pro can still handle current workloads? I work in a company since 2015 and when I joined I was handed over a new MacBook which was the latest at that time i.e 2015 Mid model i7 16GB Ram. This company does not have a rotation policy for the hardware allocated to employees at all. So they will end up repairing and replacing parts till its no longer viable.
My profession is mobile development so I would require the latest versions of macOS and Xcode all the time. Of late it has become difficult to work on the said MacBook and its sluggish all the time. I had put in a request to replace the Mac with the system team and it was simply shot down saying that the current config is good enough. I replied politely indicating the Geekbench scores for the 2015 model and the latest Intel MacBook. But again I was shot down just saying that 16GB Ram and i7 is more than enough. I understand that the current MacBook configs are not bad, but it is indeed slower than the latest ones and also 5 years old.
If not for geek bench scores how can I put a case to compare older Mac with newer ones ?

EDIT: My current macbook has been repaired a lot already and it still has issues w.r.t battery, heating issues etc ... Display,
Logic Board & Battery were already replaced last year. All those
repairs are pretty expensive, and yet for some reason this is the
route which they might want to take still.

I would look at three things

Time is money
List specific measurable benchmarks ( e.g. launch 4 specific apps each day and time them till usable, script a clean build of a representative app )
List specific app and OS requirements ( e.g. need N-2 and N+1 beta compatibility for Xcode SDK)

In the end, you’re appealing to your manager for funding and reasonableness of the “requirements” and not IT for a “blessing” of the age or benchmarks.
Consider that people are expensive to recruit and train and hardware is cheap. But it’s easy to measure hardware expenses, so that tends to get scrutinized over process (erase and install) or training.
Do some quick math on “Is it worth it?” and good luck!

In your case we would send you an identical Mac to your 2017 one that is erased and have you run your chosen tests. Most of our managed Macs need an erase every 2 years and developers tend to need erases much more often since they alter the system so heavily. They understandably complain bitterly when asked to clean (just like system admin do), which is why we send them a second kit to run tests so they aren’t forced to migrate but can do a good test on a clean system. It’s rarely the hardware slowing them down in my experience, but when it is it’s nice to have good data on a clean build so that the budget person doesn’t think the “spec” was made up or not backed by data and testing.

If you are thinking of selling then maybe use a site like Mac Recycle. In my experience, they tend to be much fairer than Apple or other larger companies.


Launch Terminal using BetterTouchTool How would I open Terminal using BetterTouchTool? I tried using predefined action: open application, but I can't seem to find the Terminal app.

Use the action "Run Apple Script" for example as a keyboard shortcut and use the following code:

tell application "Terminal" to do script

As user3439894 said, have you tried looking for Terminal in the Utilities folder rather than the applications folder. Hope This Helps :)


macOS app icon stuck on my screen I just tried to open Spotify's Mac app through the OS X LaunchPad, and when I clicked on the icon, the Mac app icon remains stuck on my screen.

I've attached some screenshots to show you. I don't know how to get it down. No matter what I do to the screen, the icon is always stuck "on top" of it.

How do I make this go away? If you're curious, Spotify opened on the second attempt. The first attempt it just got stuck.

Turns out, I just had to reset the 'dock' process. I opened Terminal and typed

killall Dock

and pressed enter. The screen flashed for a second, and everything came back with my stuck icon gone.

If that fails, the issue may be with Finder (this is the case with the similar issue of Stacks categories "burned in" to your desktop background). Running

killall Finder

will address that.

Working solution for me:

start the application that stuck to screen in launchscreen.


What's the best way to wind a MagSafe 2 around the clip and power brick to make it easier to transport? I'm totally blind, and have a MacBook with MagSafe 2 connected to the extension cable. Would somebody be able to explain how the cable can be wound around the clip on the MagSafe 2 and the pop-out wings on the power brick end to make it easier to transport in a bag? Lots of references that I've found on how this can be done are either videos or images which makes it harder to understand how this is done.

Thanks.

I realize your post states you're completely blind, but I had to add pictures to make it absolutely clear to a sighted helper what I'm attempting to describe to you. My answer may also help others have a healthier relationship with their MagSafe charger cables.

The MagSafe cable, where it connects to the power brick, tends to get too severely bent with 'normal usage', even though there is additional strain- and bend-relief built into the cable, and the cable integrity can be compromised. When winding the MagSafe cable for transport, I tend to position the bend-relief section of the cable so it sticks straight out from the power brick, then proceed to wind the MagSafe cable firmly around the wings. When wound correctly, and the last 2 inches of the cable is free, I loop the the MagSafe cable around the winding, and the connector neatly sits protected, inside the windings, at the top of the power brick between a wing and the bend-relief:

The power cable is wound neatly and fastened using a single Velcro-brand "One Wrap Thin Tie". The power cable has a natural tendency to coil in a particular radius which is optimal for keeping the wrap neat. Follow that coil, place the tie-wrap in the right spot, and all is neat.

I've been throwing this power supply in and out of my bag weekly for the past few years. I'm a little OCD, and I treat my equipment with care, so YMMV.

Something like this is best, no need for extra accessories, although it can be much tidier than in this picture.

Edit: Fair play I didn't read the question fully and missed the part about the OP being totally blind, apologies, an image isn't much use.

I still think this solution might be better potentially than some of the other solutions so I'll have a go at describing it.

The aim is to wrap the thicker cable around the square power block in one direction and then the thinner wire around the square block  at a ninety degree angle using the pop-out wings. This allows the thinner wire to keep the thicker wire in place.

Flip open the pop-out wings on the square charger block.
Of the two attached wires, find the thinner wire with the Magsafe connector.
Find the small plastic clip which slides up and down this thinner wire and push it to about 3cm or 1 inch from the Magsafe connector. We will use this later for clipping the wire.
From now on you should hold the square power block oriented with the pop-out wings on the side furthest away from you. The thinner wire can just hang down, just make sure it's not tangled with the thicker wire.
Now take the thicker wire and wrap it around the square block, starting from the side nearest to you and over the opposite side. The opposite side should have the pop-out wings and you are trying to wrap the wire evenly in between them. Don't worry if it isn't even though.
Once you have wrapped up the thick cable, you'll have to hold it in place with your hand (I find it best to use my weaker hand here). Try to keep your hand away from the top side where the pop-out wings are.
Now find the thinner wire and wrap it around the two pop-out wings. You should feel that you are surrounding the thicker wire as you do this and this is why I like this method. It keeps the thicker wire in place.
Once you have wrapped up all of the thinner wire, you should be able to attach the end to one of the loops you just made using the small clip we slid towards the Magsafe connector earlier


Can't click with trackpad or mouse (OS X 10.9, MacBook Pro) I have a new(ish) MacBook Pro running OS X 10.9. When it boots up to the login screen it will let me move the cursor around, but it won't recognize click events.

I thought it was the trackpad, so I connected a wired mouse, and the symptoms persist.

After a little searching online I found that MacBook Pro owners have been having this same issue, and that Apple recommends closing the lid for 60 seconds, which causes some reset.

This has also worked for me, however, a few minutes into working, the cursor will stop accepting click events (even though I can still move it).

I can't keep closing and opening my lid every few minutes. Anyone got any ideas?

One of the most common causes of this is a magic mouse turned on in your laptop bag or somewhere similar.

Turning off bluetooth will ensure no remote button is being held down.

I thought I'd finally fixed the "mouse tracks but won't register clicks" issue by cleaning ALL battery contact points + & - in the belly of the mouse with rubbing alcohol on a swab. In my case, the +  contacts were visibly "foggy"/dirty.

After doing so, clicking worked but my iMac behaved as if it wouldn't let go of the "down click" state, so, it lasso'd everything until I turned the mouse off.  :(

SO, what actually WORKED was *holding down the POWER button on my Apple wireless keyboard" for a loooong time. Evidently, cycling the power on the wireless kybd "woke up" the proper functionality for my Apple Magic Mouse. (OF course, I trashed the various preference files before any of this, and un-paired & re-paired the bluetooth for the Magic Mouse). Turned my keyboard back on & now all is well... just had to re-enable the right-click functionality via Mouse System Preference.


Xcode 5.1.1 crashes on 10.9.5 Mavericks when run in User Account but runs in Guest Account Model Name: iMac
  Model Identifier: iMac9,1
  Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
  Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
  Number of Processors: 1
  Total Number of Cores: 2
  L2 Cache: 6 MB
  Memory: 4 GB
  Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
  Boot ROM Version: IM91.008D.B08
  SMC Version (system): 1.37f3

Xcode 5.1.1 does not load up on Mavericks 10.9.5 when logging in from my User Account. However it does run from my Guest Account. I have deleted Xcode preferences , reinstalled Xcode 5.1.1 from the App Store and still the same behaviour occurs. Have also tried if changing the security settings Mac App Store only, Mac App Store and Registered Developers and Anywhere ; regardless of the security setting chosen the Xcode application doesn't load. This is truly annoying and stymies my productivity. I am not currently registered on a Mac Developer program but am registered with an Apple ID and can log into the Developer centre.

I would really like to get this solved.

This would seem to be an answer, but as my situation was resolved when I updated to 10.10 I cannot test to prove it, but share just in case it proves to be useful

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22480382/xcode-5-1-doesnt-load-on-os-x-10-9-2-and-10-9-3/26704775#26704775


Can the Apple Watch app be side loaded and used on other iOS devices? I know the official requirement to use the Apple Watch is an iPhone 5 or newer running iOS 8.2+, but I'm interested to know if it is possible to sync it to an older iPhone, iPod, or an iPad by side loading the Apple Watch app or any hacks. According to Bluetooth SIG's site the iPhone 4s, iPad (Air, Mini, 3rd & 4th gen), and iPod touch (5th) are Bluetooth Smart Ready which means they are compatible with both standard and low energy Bluetooth protocols. Since the Apple Watch only works with Bluetooth LE and these devices also support LE it seems to be just a software limitation.

I would try side loading the 'Apple Watch' app myself to a jailbroken iOS device however I am not able to find a .app/.ipa for it.

I have already read the "Can you use the Apple Watch with an iPod touch?" post but I believe this question is different enough to justify a new thread.

Apple Watch uses Bluetooth to communicate with iPhone. iPhone 5 is the first device that had Bluetooth LE support, which is used in cases where you want a low-energy-usage always-on connection, so it would follow that is the earliest model that can actually communicate with Apple Watch.

While Apple Watch can, in some circumstances, use Wi-Fi to communicate with iPhone, it has to be a network that iPhone was connected to while previously paired with Apple Watch over Bluetooth. Since devices prior to iPhone 5 likely cannot establish a Bluetooth connection to Apple Watch, no Wi-Fi network would ever be trusted by Apple Watch to use for communication with iPhone.


Grey Volume bar - coreaudiod - Job failed to exec(3) for weird reason: 2 I've just installed the Mavericks 10.9.1 update and my audio is not working. The volume bar is obscurely grey, and the mac is becoming slightly slow.

I checked the console to see anything related to this issue and I found this message every ten seconds.

Dec 22 08:07:33 hko com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.audio.coreaudiod[989]): Job failed to exec(3) for weird reason: 2
Dec 22 08:07:33 hko com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.audio.coreaudiod): Job should be able to exec(3) now.
Dec 22 08:07:33 hko com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.audio.coreaudiod): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

I've searched on google for this issue and no luck.

I'm not sure if this has got to do with my mac's permissions but I'm not sure what to do next.

"Weird reason 2" is ENOENT: No such file or directory. The file the job is referring to (/usr/bin/sandbox-exec on my installation) no longer exists.

In my bash script I made every path absolute. That was not enough!

Im my LaunchAgent I made use of ~ in stead of /Users/xyz.

This fixed the issue for me.


Some PDFs created by MS Word 2007's Save-as-PDF feature (on Windows) don't display correctly on Mac OS / iOS Some PDFs created by MS Word 2007's Save as PDF feature (on Windows) don't display correctly on Mac OS using the built-in PDF handling. They display correctly using Acrobat, Photoshop, Inkscape, or probably any other app that uses it's own PDF rendering, rather than the native quartz rendering. This problem is also visible when viewing the PDFs on an iPhone / iPad.

This PDF displays as
http://www.schimmelpenninck.net/pix/blurred_pdf.png

There is a discussion here, but it doesn't have an useful answer.

Is there anything that can be done in Office 2007 on Windows to make it create PDFs that don't have this problem?

There isn't anything you do to Word to improve its PDF output. The best way to guarantee solid cross-platform PDFs is to get Adobe Acrobat (the full version, not Reader) and Distiller and make PDFs through those applications. Unless something has changed since the last time I did this on Windows, you'll output to Postscript through the Print window and create the PDF with Distiller, but you need Acrobat to get the drivers and converters. PDF is an open ISO standard, but Adobe's products are still the best way to go here.

Just open the Mac Word document in Pages. It saves PDFs more reliably than Word in my limited experience.


Is it possible to route my iPhone calls through my MacBook Pro sound system? I have external speakers and microphone hooked up to my MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard and an iPhone 3Gs connected to it with a USB cord. Is it possible to route calls from the iPhone through the external speakers and mic (with or without bluetooth)? Put another way, is it possible to use my MacBook Pro, external speakers and microphone as a speakerphone for the iPhone?

There are several bluetooth solutions, that should be useful:

Phone Amego ($29) - This should do the trick. Works and has interesting features. I recommend it.
BluePhoneElite 2 - No longer developed and supported. I see almost everything vanished, but I think you should be able to locate a working copy somehow.

Edit: As of OS X 10.10 Yosemite and iOS8 this will be included in the OS itself. It's called Continuity.

ps. I'm not in any way connected to the authors of the software, mentioned in my answer.

I dont think you can use your laptop as a speaker phone. If you want to make calls from your computer maybe look at VOIP solutions or skype.


Mac OS X 10.10 doesnt recognize 1 and 3-finger gestures I have Macbook Pro 13" 2014. Everything was working fine. But suddenly it stopped recognizing some gestures.
I was always using built-in trackpad. But now my computer doesn't respond to tap or physical click. 3-finger gestures are not recognized as well.

A few hours before this, the computer was working fine. Then I left my laptop open for about 40 min. When I returned, it looked like the mouse button was clicked and stuck in the clicked state (I don't have a mouse, it is just how it looked like). Of course, I tried to stop it, but nothing helped... The laptop was unusable at all, so I just restarted it by holding power button.

When I connect a standard PC mouse, I get the same outcome - 2-finger tap, zooming, swiping work. But not clicking.

If I go to settings and set the secondary click to be the click in the right bottom corner of trackpad - this click is recognized.

Clicks are also recognized in login screen, but not recognized in recovery mode.

When I log in - clicks are detected, so I am able to log in. But it stops responding to clicks after that. Even when I log out, the clicks doesn't have any effect. I cannot login back!

I believe this is not a hardware problem and I can fix it as soon as possible.
But how? I cleaned it, performed reboots, cannot reinstall OS though - simply cannot click "next"!

On the forums say that it might be a battery problem, but from the outside I don't see anything abnormal. And I cannot open the laptop and look at the battery.

How to make my laptop recognize clicks? Please, help me!

UPD: I added a few details.

One Queston, then my suggestion.

  When I connect a standard PC mouse, I get the same outcome - 2-finger
  tap, zooming, swiping work. But not clicking.

Did the machine respond normally to the mouse click?

Given your description of the issue, here’s how I would proceed:

Make sure your software and firmware is up date. Apple Logo > About This Mac.. > Software Update
Disconnect all peripheral devices. Hold down Shift at the boot chime to enter Safe Mode. If you can’t recreate the problem, it’s software related. The most likely culprit would be a third party driver that's interfering with your trackpad functionality.
Run Apple Diagnostics on the machine. Do so two times, back to back, regardless of the result. The machine must be plugged into your MagSafe. If the machine is not plugged in, you may receive a false positive that there is an issue with your battery. If you do receive an error code, follow the on screen instructions. Make an appointment to bring your machine in for a definitive diagnosis and servicing.
Follow these instructions to reset the SMC. Components such as the keyboard lights, fans, battery, power supply, and trackpad all rely on this controller. If one is behaving abnormally, a reset may do the trick. See if the issue persists. If it still does, then proceed to reset the PRAM.
Make an appointment with Apple to bring the machine in for a free and definitive diagnosis. Remember, your machine is covered under warranty. The last thing you want to do is void that warranty. Especially when you can’t even pinpoint the problem. Simply unscrewing the bottom enclosure will void it if detected. So, do not try a DIY fix. Bring it in. If it’s a hardware problem, they’ll fix it free of charge. If it’s a software issue, they’ll proceed accordingly (see below) until the problem’s solved. No matter what the issue is, as long as it’s under warranty, they assume responsibility for fixing it until it’s fixed. I don’t mean to come off as preachy, but I can't stress this point enough.
I see no purpose in reinstalling OS X before diagnosing the issue. It’s the first step Apple will suggest to take after the hardware checks out. Not before.  However, if you do so, I’d recommend a clean install (wipe the machine completely, then selectively restore your data).

Best of luck.

I had the exact same problem, turned out to be a Bluetooth mouse connected, lying in a drawer with the mouse button pressed :)


What is the technology used in iOS 11 settings migration (moving blue dots / particles pattern / animated QR code?) During the setup of a new iPhone 8 / iPhone 8 Plus / iPhone X, there is a step for migrating the settings from another iOS 11 device.

On the old device, it says:

  Set Up New iPhone

  Use your Apple ID "xxx@xxx.com" to set up your new iPhone.

On the new device, it says:

  Quick Start

  If you have an iPhone or iPad running iOS 11, bring it nearby to sign in automatically.

  If you want, you can also set up this iPhone manually.

After tapping "Continue" on the old device, on the old device, it says:

  Hold Your New iPhone Up to the Camera

  Position the pattern in the circle

On the new device, it says:

  Waiting for Other iPhone...

  Position this image in the frame of your other iPhone.

A pattern of moving blue dots appears in the new device, as shown in this picture:

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2017/06/05/automatic-setup-feature-ios-11/

And in this video:

https://youtu.be/tHxhZu97pXc

I believe it works like QR code, but it is not. Does anybody know what the name of this technology is?

The technology can be thought of very much like an animated QR-code. The main principle of data encoding is very much like QR-codes, but obviously with the difference that as time goes forward, the displayed data changes as an animation.

In addition there seems to be the use of a neat trick with two different colors shown in quick alternation, which makes it possible for Apple to "hide" or make less obvious the clues that are used for the receiver of the data to synchronize with the signal (i.e. figure out where the boundaries of the encoded data is).

With a traditional QR code these sync markers are much more evident as they are big black square boxes with white borders that are set different places in the code to make it easy for the receiver to figure out what's encoded data, and what's not part of the code.

Much more details are available in these two patent applications by Apple:

US Patent 9,022,291
US Patent 9,022,292

Apple's proximity-based process for transferring data
Automatic Setup is Apple's proximity-based process for transferring data, settings, and content from an old device to a new one. You can use Automatic Setup on your iPhone, Apple Watch, or Apple TV.
Apple's Automatic Setup feature began as an easier way for users to set up the Apple TV with "tap-to-set-up," which let you use your iPhone's sensors to quickly connect to your Apple TV and automatically enter in data like an Apple ID and Wi-Fi network. Since then, the feature has evolved and expanded to cover not only the Apple TV, but new iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch models as well.

Automatic Setup is great because it lets users skip much of the
form-filling present in older versions of setting up new devices — you
shouldn't have to manually enter Wi-Fi network names and passwords,
Apple IDs, or settings from previous devices. It's also
proximity-based, keeping that data secure by requiring you to
physically have both old and new devices in the same location.
Apple uses a slightly different method to automatically set up each
device, depending on whether it's an iPhone or iPad, Apple Watch, or
Apple TV.

Visit this site for how different devices are setup.


websites don't open on a specific wifi connection (probably DNS issue) I have a cable broadband which works flawlessly; I am using the same to ask this question from my Android.
But it doesn't work on my MacBook (10.10.2).
Basically, no websites open, although I can ping all the websites, sometimes Google websites open fine, but that too only in Chrome (not in the incognito mode though).

I have tried Safari, it had the same problem.
I have tried removing and adding the wifi connection.
I have tried flushing the unicast and multicast DNS cache with the recommended commands.
I have tried adding Google & OpenDNS servers to network settings for this wifi connection.
I have verified that the wifi connection works fine on Windows and Android devices.
I have reset the wifi router.
I have verified that the MacBook works fine with all other wifi and other kinds of internet connections.
I have tried connecting the MacBook to hotspot (Bluetooth) with Android, but still the websites don't open.

Any help will be truly appreciated, but please, don't suggest things I've already tried.

Update:

This gets fixed when I cold restart the MacBook. Also, to clarify, all other internet services work fine e.g. Skype, Dropbox, Box apps seem to work. So, it is probably something to do with the DNS, as pointed out by Buscar웃 too.

I use DHCP with this wifi connection. The network settings show several DNS servers automatically populated by DHCP. I can override them though, by adding new DNS servers, but still the problem persists (as I mentioned above in point 4).

Some users have reported similar problems with 10.10.2

Looking true you attempts, I would suggest following additional steps.

Reset WiFi settings:

Turn Off Wi-Fi from the Wireless menu item

From the OS X Finder, hit Command+Shift+G and Copy/Paste the following path:

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

Select following files:

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist

com.apple.network.identification.plist

com.apple.wifi.message-tracer.plist

NetworkInterfaces.plist

preferences.plist

and move them to Desktop (do not delete for now). This forces OS X to recreate all network configuration files.

Restart WiFi and check.

Solution 2:

If your Ping works (your WiFi connection is fine), then check and modify your DNS server (responsible to connect you to the right website). I would add Google DNS in system preferences- Network -Advanced -DNS and it is the 8.8.8.8

Try going to wifi icon, open network preferences, check ask to join new networks. This worked for me.


How can I recover missing iCloud storage space? I have an iCloud account with the free 5GB storage, which I want to use for backups.

I have a strange situation where my iCloud is showing as having only 2.2GB space available:

But isn't showing what is using up the space.

I have previously used it for backups of various devices, but these aren't showing.

How can I recover my lost space?

I ended up phoning up iCloud support, and they were similarly baffled. They tried a load of things (none of which worked), and eventually they then asked me to delete the WhatsApp Documents & Data storage. Despite it saying that only 350MB was being used by WhatsApp, deleting this immediately freed up around 2.8GB (350MB plus the ~2.5GB of "lost" space) in iCloud.

Manage your iCloud storage

Learn how to manage your iCloud storage if you reach or exceed your storage limit.

You can manage your storage by upgrading your iCloud storage plan or reducing the amount of storage that you're using. You can reduce your iCloud storage by choosing which apps and backups to store, and you can move or delete documents, photos, and email messages that you no longer need.*
Use these steps to see how much iCloud storage is available in your account:

On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:

If you're using iOS 8 or later, tap Settings > iCloud > Storage > Manage Storage.
If you're using an earlier version of iOS, tap Settings > iCloud > Storage & Backup.
On your Mac, go to Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Manage.
On your PC, open iCloud for Windows, then click Manage.

Before you delete anything, you might want to archive or make copies of your iCloud data.


How can I open password protected Word documents on my iPad for free? I would like to open a password protected Word document on my iPad. I've found paid solutions but nothing for free. Am I missing an option?

Try GoodReader which is very inexpensive ($0.99) and most useful app on iPad. I use it all the time both on iPhone and iPad.

This video saved me...100% working method to unlock a word document
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxhEFJPAv9w


Excel for Mac (15.33) not remembering recently used files For some reason, Excel for Mac (15.33) is not remembering recently used files.  How do I fix this?

I'm not using Office 365.

I decided to pin a document in the File Open dialog:

after doing so, the Open Recent menu was populated.

** edit **

After closing and restarting Excel, the problem reoccurred.

The problem was fixed years ago, but has returned to all Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2019 version 16.29.0 (19090802) for Mac released yesterday: they only show "File - Open Recent - More" and not any recent item there! Somebody knows how to fix it or is this an Office bug?


Does the use of SSD give one a dramatic performance boost? I use Mac book pro 15", and it's time to buy a new one.
For HDD, now I see a new option of SSD, which is pretty expensive.

I can expect shorter boot-up time and faster access of files, but I'm not sure if it's worth the money.

Does the use of SSD give one a dramatic performance boost?
Is buying SSD from Apple a good idea? It seems the price difference between HDD and SSD is more than the price of SSD in retail.

I disagree with Randolph's Answer. If anything, the article says exactly the opposite of the "good performance for a while" part.

  What we found was the exact opposite: an OS that doesn't appear to be affected by SSD performance degradation

And I don't have Apple's SSD. I have an OWC on a Mac Pro and haven't had any performance degradation since I brought it, about six month ago. Before that, I had an Intel drive and also never had degradation problems under OSX. I changed the drive because my 1st drive was too small. That Intel-M drive is running on a laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium.

So far, it has been proven that OS X doesn't suffer from the lack of TRIM support; what we don't know if that's because the OS/FileSystem is doing something different or because there's TRIM support hidden and not reported.

In any case, getting a SSD is really a performance increase. I only use it for the OS and some minor things, the rest sits on a mirrored SATA RAID, but this is a Mac Pro, so things are different.

On small Macbooks, the usage of SSD is like day and night and I haven't seen performance degradation over the course of a Year.

Maybe there is one, but if that's the case, it's so slow that by the time is significant, you'll be either changing the drive or the whole computer.

I've been using SSD since late 2009.

I recommend you don't get one from Apple, as they tend to overcharge. Get one of the many SSD's alternatives like Corsairs, Intels or the OWC I have, which I heavily recommend.

But the SSD market is in a constant evolution, so read before you buy.

It gives a huge boost. My MacBook now boots in just 8 seconds, down from a minute and a half.


How to tell if iPhone's SIM port is working even though it's locked? Is there any way to know if my phone's SIM port is working, even though it's locked to Sprint and I don't have access to a Sprint SIM? I tried using another one but it says "no sim" instead of "no service". Should I go on with the unlocking or there is something else causing it to say "no sim"?

This is what I did to solve the problem.

Powered the phone down.
I removed the SIM card.
Use a small paper clip and insert in the sim card hole and push firmly. Don't use a large paper clip. While they fit the hole, are too large to push on the mechansim that pops the card up.
I lightly cleaned the SIM card contacts with an alcohol prep swab (the kind they use when you get a shot). Just so you know, I did try dry cleaning the card with a soft cloth at first, but it didn't work for me. Try it, if you don't have the prep swab, it might work for you.
I then made sure the card was dry of the alcohol before I reinserted the card in the phone.

Restarted the phone.

This solved my problem. The phone booted up normally.
I hope it solves your problem too.


Is there an FM radio app for the iPhone? I am planning to buy an iPhone, but the one thing missing is FM radio.

Is there a way to listen to FM radio on the iPhone?

There's no good public answer for this question. There is an FM radio in the iPod Nano, but leaving it out of the iPhone is clearly a design decision. There may have been issues with chip suppliers, but I suspect that had Apple wanted to have an FM radio in the device, those issues would have been dealt with.

It's somewhat more likely that Apple sees FM radio versus material it sells or rents via the iTunes Store as a zero-sum game. Consuming more of the former makes it somewhat less likely that the latter will be purchased.

Given the famous Apple disdain for focus groups and market research, it's probably most likely that someone in an iPhone design meeting said "Hey, who listens to FM radio?" and got no reply, so that feature was cut

No because there isn't a tuner designed to work with the iPhone, this is because the gsm radio on the phone interferes with the fm receiver


How to check if EarPods are fake or not? With iPhone, MacBook we have serial numbers etc. So it is possible to call support and to ask.

How can we check EarPods?

Apple has a page to assist in verifying authenticity for some of their products.

For EarPods, there's no easy way to check.

A few years ago, someone on LinkedIn wrote a nice article with pictures to help people identify real products vs fake.

It comes down to quality of materials and workmanship.  If you look at the pictures and explanations in that link, you can easily see the type of quality Apple puts into the design and manufacture of their products. Use this only as a guide for things to look for.  They're not the only ways to spot a fake but it's a good start.

For example:

  Check the bass holes in the EarPod (Clearest Way)

  The OEM EarPods will conduct an airflow to the bass holes at the
  bottom of it which be designed for better bass sound. If you cover
  these holes with your fingers, less bass music can be heard.

  For fake ones, the “bass holes” are just for “decorating” purposes.

As mentioned in the comments, the best way to ensure you have a genuine product is to buy directly from Apple or a licensed reseller.

You purchase your AirPods from an official Apple  retailer or of course an Apple Store....they are genuine Apple’s AirPods.
If you purchase them from an unofficial shop or someone give them to you or....ets.  Then all you have to do is pair them with tour iPhone or iPad through settings-Bluetooth-open AirPods case -press the pair button at the back of the case until pods are paired with iPhone/iPad. Then go to general-about-scroll down and you’ll see AirPods.
Press AirPods and you’ll see data as: MANUFACTURER
MODEL NUMBER
SERIAL NUMBER
FIRMWARE VERSION
HARDWARE VERSION

Email apple support // go to an Apple store and give them those data ...they will verify if AirPods are genuine or fake or stolen ets.


How can I make a folder and its contents automatically owned by two people? Ok, in the /Users/Shared/ folder I have my DropBox folder.

I have read/write permissions set for me and my wife (shared computer).  However, if she creates a folder/file in the DropBox folder, I can see it but I have to type in my password to delete or edit it.  And she has to do the same if I create something.

How can I make it so that if she creates a file/folder in the DropBox folder, we both automatically are the owners?  It doesn't seem to me that the Shared folder does a very good job of, well, SHARING.  Even though I have set both of our accounts as read/write on Shared and all contents.

This is driving me insane.

Thanks.

You can solve this problem using group permissions. What you want is to have a file mode creation mask set such that group read, write, and execute permissions are automatically set for each file when a file is created. This can be accomplished using the umask command inside your startup script such as ~/.bash_profile. To set rw permissions on all files, rwx on all directories, that you both create, use

# Set the umask such that user and group can read, write, and execute.
umask u=rwx,g=rwx,o=

Furthermore, you may want to set everything in the Dropbox to have at a minimum rw group permissions for files and rwx permissions for folders. You can accomplish this using

chmod -R g+r,g+w /Users/Shared

for files and use

chmod -R g+x /Users/Shared/FOLDER

for folders. You can view the existing permissions in the terminal using

ls -l /Users/Shared

where the rwx permissions are arranged in order of owner, group, and other.

I think that batter solution for that will be installing on other computer another instance of dropbox app? You can use your same credentials or other (with sharing enabled within dropbox site).

It will enable other computer to access files when your computer will be sleep/off.


Address for "Home" is incorrect in Maps and I can't seem to find a way to updated it? When I originally got my iPhone 5s I asked Siri to set my home address. At that time, it recognized a wrong address and I can't seem to find a way to correct it.  It is listed with a little house icon as my home address within my recent listing of addresses but not sure how to correct it.  My iPhone (which I recently updated to an iPhone 6) does recognize "me" as my correct contact information within contacts.  My contact information does have my correct home address and when I ask Siri what my home address it is does list my contact information but when I say "take me home" it goes to the historic wrong address.

I've read prior posts and one suggested it might be pulling from my AppleID but that isn't the case.  It's listed right there.

I can't seem to find where this information is editable?  The only place where I can find where it seems to be stored is within the iPhone/Apple "Maps" application.

I've cleared the history in the application and it clears everything but the home so can't seem to find a way to get rid of it or change it (swipe to left or right doesn't seem to work easily).

As stated, I now have an iPhone 6.  It's running iOS8 but has the same problem on my 5s when it was running iOS7.

Please help, I find this frustrating and haven't seem to find any posts that help.

Don't know if you've figured this out yet, but I finally did today. I've had the same problem for years and multiple phones. Today I opened my contact info and as always, my home address was correct. I clicked on edit and down at the bottom, under my home address was an "other" address, the one maps always tried to take me to. I was able to delete that address and it fixed my problem!

Also - be sure to check if you have many sources to contacts. Facebook, work or exchange contact lists, google contact lists, etc.. can all link and pull an address that's somehow indicated as "home".

The steps to clear up contacts when contacts only exist locally or only in one cloud database is:

How do I tell iOS 7 which address is my “home” address?

Go to your contacts and where your details are listed at the top, edit and then update your address.


AirPort Express - Create Network or Extend Network? I have 1 Airport Extreme (newer version) and 3 AirPort Express's (1st gen) in my house. I understand that physically connecting all 3 Express's over ethernet and setting to "Create Network" is the best option (according to this article), however they are not all 3 in range of ethernet.

So my question is: What is the difference/impact between the "Create Network" and "Extend Network" options when the AirPort Express is not physically connected?

I would think that "Create Network" in this case would literally create new wireless networks and make the situation much worse.  Is that not true?

Choosing "Extend Network" will greatly reduce the bandwidth (read: download speeds) available to your devices connected via Wifi, since one router has to relay data to the next wirelessly.

Apple has a good support article on extending your network, the various choices and the impact it has. "In the case of a wirelessly extended network, throughput may be reduced to less than 60 percent of that of a single device.": https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202056

Since, as you say, you cannot interconnect your three Airports via Ethernet, the only choice is to extend. You can only "Create a New Network" if your Airport can reach your Internet router/modem via Ethernet.

If you have an ethernet connection to all three Airport routers, then creating a new network, even with the same name will give you better bandwidth, since the three routers should configure itself to be on different bands (or you could manually configure separate bands with the Airport utility as well).

What about using Netgear Nighthawk R7000 Wireless Router, connected directly to a modem, and joining two Airport express units connected
by 50’ long Ethernet to router plus the Time Capsule on 2’ Ethernet cable and having all three “Create a Network”?


Upgrade from iPhone 3G 4.2.1 to iPhone 5S 7.0.4 A friend of mine has a good old iPhone 3G (yep, the thing still works :)) and he just bought an iPhone 5S. When he takes a backup of the iPhone 3G in iTunes (iCloud isn't supported in iOS 4) and tries a restore on his iPhone 5S, the restore completely fails...

No errors are given. The iPhone 5S just starts in his configuration screen (select language). So it looks like the backup cannot be restored.
Weird thing is, when he tries to turn off the iPhone 5S, the background screen of his iPhone 3G is shown... So some data has been transferred, but not enough for the iPhone 5S to boot with the restore...

What's going on here? Is the backup of the iPhone 3G too old? Or is he missing something?

I just upgraded from 3G to 5S and at first had the same problem. What I learned in another chat was that prior to restore I had to update to IOS 6.1... Once the OS was updated, I backed up the 3G and did a restore to the 5S from the latest 3G backup. It took a long time, but was well worth it.


IMAP synching issues on OS X Mavericks I am new to OS X. Yesterday I set up my email accounts in Mail. It immediately synchronised my emails from my inbox. However, since then I don't get my mails, although I see them through webmail.
I heard Mail in Mavericks had problems with IMAP, so I tried to install Thunderbird and Postbox as well with the same result which means I can see the emails I received before yesterday, but none of the new ones.
I even tried rebooting but that did not help either.

What is the problem and how can I solve it?

UPDATE:
I do not use gmail, my account is hosted by a private provider.

Up front I have to say that it is known factor that mavericks has (had) some issues with IMAP mail providers. There was an upgrade that supposed to address that.

All in all, make sure you have the correct IMAP settings at your provider.

Here is an example for Gmail.

Starting from the settings in your web mail client (ie Gmail)

Go to your web mail (gmail) and in settings, check all folders (Google calls that Labels) you want to see on your computer (show in IMAP).

Just to make sure:

Disable junk mail filtering in your Mail.app on your computer
Disable all Rules in your Mail.app on your computer.
Also take a look for new mails in the Archive folder, which is an equivalent to the Googles "All Mail" folder.

In Mail.app under Window--click on the activity and see it work once you click the Get Mail. It will show you what is going on.

Here are recommended setting for Apple mail from Gmail:

I'm a Cox subscriber, and my problem is that I simply can't send emails using Apple Mail. I receive them with no problem, and I have no problem with other operations, such as deletions and filing. If I go to Cox Mail, I have no difficulty sending emails, but because accessing that system is cumbersome--and because I have been creating and filling folders in Apple Mail for several years--I prefer not to switch. What are all you better-informed users planning to do?


Is it possible to turn off external displays when I close the lid of my macbook? By default, when I close the lid of my macbook, the external display becomes the primary. It is annoying because I have to plug out the cable and charger to turn it off but I'd like that whenever I close the lid of my macbook, it puts the macbook to sleep and turns off external display? Is it possible?

As macOS doesn't provide a way to shutdown all screens by closing the laptop lead, which is a shame, you can put the laptop in sleep mode and also set security parameter to lock it immediately when it goes to sleep so you can leave once the screen is black.

If you have a MacBook with Touch Bar, you can also add the sleep icon to it :

I put it on the left to be sure not to touch it when i hit the fingerprint sensor or the delete key...

To modify the touch bar, go to system preferences/keyboard and you will find a "customise touchbar" on the bottom right corner.

If you have an external keyboard connected, you can try pressing CMD-Brightness Up.
If you don't have an external keyboard connected, you can press the power button on your display (if it has one).
If those don't work you'll have to:
Unplug the HDMI/Thunderbolt cable going to the display from your Mac.
Unplug the power adapter from your Mac.
Shut down your Mac.
Change the input on your display (if available).


iOS8: Spotlight keyboard missing When I open Spotlight on iOS8 on my iPhone 6 Plus I get the Spotlight Search but occasionally I have no keyboard.

Any suggestions how I get the keyboard back other than rebooting which takes a significant chunk of time?

Easiest fix is to launch notes and compose a bogus note with the Apple keyboard, then change keyboard back.

Hi I just want to clarify that this bug is still present in IOS 8.4 with all the different custom keyboards.


Why is my disk space shrinking? I've just got a second hand MacBook from my dad which is a 2017 version with 250GB storage. I've factory reset it so theoretically it should be a completely blank slate, but for some reason I'm losing disk space already. Every couple of minutes the available space shrinks; it seems I lose 100MG every ten minutes or so. I'm currently on 231.52GB free, and it was at least 235 a few hours ago.

I know this began as soon as the computer switched on because the first thing I did was to check the storage space and I immediately noticed that it was going down. I'm not downloading anything at all from the internet, my downloads folder is completely empty.

This is really frustrating to me, not to mention making me a bit paranoid about when it's going to stop and how much space I'll have lost when it does. The whole reason I got this Mac was for the better storage as my previous one was less than half the size (120GB) and it was causing big problems. And granted it's only small chunk of the overall storage gone so far, but I'm gonna be using a lot of big files on this machine and I need all the space I can get. Does anyone know why this is happening and how to stop it? I'm wary of even downloading anything else until I get to the root of this problem.

I think having 235GB free space on a 256GB SSD Macbook Pro is not very likely on an active system. 256GB SSD Mac normally has about 250 GB of available space. The system and pre-installed apps would easily take much more space than 15 GB.

On the other hand, mac storage reporting can dynamically change (up or down) as calculations take place. You might have been observing that going up and down in calculations.

On a fresh installed OS, much things can be going. For example, spotlight might be building an index. As you browse web-sites, Safari or Google chrome will also be building up its cache. Likewise, if you use Spotify, even it will cache the songs you are listening. Therefore, I suggest that you use the system for a while and then see if the storage calculations settle down.

When the things settle down, you can make an analysis of used space and try to see if everything is normal or not. Hope that helps.

Go to System Preferences -> iCloud and when that panel opens the checkbox next to iCloud should be checked. If so click on the Options button on that line.  When another new panel opens, there is a checkbox near the bottom that says Optimize Mac Storage. Reverse this setting (if it's checked, uncheck it, if it's unchecked, check it).


Is there a way to export iPhone slideshow to PC? I’m using an iPhone 5s and windows computer.

I’d like to watch and share the beautiful slideshow iPhone creates with Photos.

If you really really want it you can try a third-party app called, CoolPixel. It will let you record the slideshow as it plays. However, I am not sure of any issues that may arise from using it. (It's not in the App Store yet), but I have used it for a year now and I haven't noticed anything wrong with it. Try it at your own risk, though.


Change Siri Search Engine iOS 9 I'm using Siri on an iPad Pro and I've set the default search engine in Settings > Safari to Bing but when I search for something with Siri it defaults to Baidu. I know that the default search engine works for Safari because when I type in the search bar it searches with Bing.

Search results for this don't apply to iOS 9. The iPad is new and there are no extensions on any sort installed. No data has been transferred from a backup. The only third party apps installed so far are MS Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

How can I make Siri search with Bing?

Until today, there's no way to do this. Here's my findings:

Siri doesn't perform search directly on baidu.com, it uses Siri's hideout [guzzoni.apple.com] to relay the request over (properly configured) TLS.

Other than asking for Apple's mercy, I think it's more probable to trade Chinese iPhone with one from another country.

BTW, the packets themselves are pretty fun to look at.


Making a Bootable Windows 7 USB without Bootcamp I recently got a macbook pro with the intention of dual booting Windows 7 so that I can play some old games I still have that don't run on anything more recent, and generally access my Steam library. I was frustrated to find that Bootcamp would not allow me to use Windows 7, despite the fact that my laptop is compatible, and therefore set out to create a bootable USB on my own.

It's been really, really frustrating. I've searched for a couple hours online, but I must be doing something wrong, because all of the tutorials I can find either do not work, or tell me to use bootcamp - Which won't let me doing what I'm trying to do.

I have a Windows 7 Iso that I legally downloaded, I have a USB stick with 8 gigs of storage. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make that USB stick function as a bootable drive, so that my Macbook will let me install Windows.

Any advice, or links to a tutorial that actually works?

Microsoft has a tool for creating a bootable USB stick installer that works with Windows 7, 8 and 10. You can find it here. http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool#installation

The caveat is that you will need a windows PC to use the utility.

Now Bootcamp will do the same thing plus it will put all the right drivers in the installer to be installed with Windows and help you resize the Mac partition and create a Windows partition. You don't technically have to do it that way though. If you open the Boot Camp package there will be a Windows driver installer package you can copy onto your Windows 7 install USB media and then run once you have windows installed.

Note that you will likely have to re-partition the drive yourself. the Windows 7 installer will not likely resize your Mac partition, you'll probably need one of those Linux bootable "rescue" utilities that will let you resize your Mac's partition so you can install Windows in the partition you could create with it.

It is not terribly difficult but does require enough computer experience to not mess things up and do everything in the right order.

One bit of advice though make a backup image of your Mac's HD before you do anything else. As things going wrong are not unlikely at all.

That's because Macs cannot natively read NTFS (what Windows is formatted to) drives.  If you restart in boot mode by holding down the option key it should show up.  If that doesn't work, try installing an NTFS driver tool for Macs and then repeat.


Move HDD from a MacBook Pro (Mid 2012) model to another MacBook Pro (Mid 2012) model I have a HDD from MacBook Pro (Mid 2012) model: OS: Yosemite; The content in the HDD is important to me.

I want to know If I can buy a MacBook Pro of the same model, Mid 2012, and simply hook the HDD in and get it running as it was in the original Mac.

I don't want to use the Disk Utility or a cloning tool to copy the content.

As long as you're certain the replacement hardware is identical to your original, then yes this will work. One important caveat:

This is something I would not do without testing first. I'd invest in either a USB-SATA drive adapter or a cheap USB enclosure and use that to connect your old laptop's drive to the replacement laptop and see if it comes up as a bootable drive by holding down the option key at startup. If it shows up in the boot manager and successfully boots the system that way then it should be ok to swap it in.

If you're unsure of how to verify if your replacement is the same build as your old laptop I'd recommend using this site: [http://www.chipmunk.nl/klantenservice/applemodel.html/] to do a comparison using the serial numbers of both systems.

It Should be possible I have experience in this and have transplanted a HDD from a MacBookPro8,1 to a mid-2012 iMac (sorry forgot model code) and after repairing permissions it worked fine, this was using OS X 10.9.


How can I avoid my MacBook Pro giving me minor shocks? The aluminum Macbook Pro gives a mild shock when connected to a wall socket and charging. It only happens when I'm, for example, not wearing shoes or slippers and my feet are resting on the ground (i.e. by body is acting as a conductor).
I contacted apple and I was told to perform the following steps:

Shutdown

hold ⇧+ctrl+⌥+power for 10 seconds

wait 30 seconds then hold ⇧+ctrl+⌥+R+power (Let the Mac reboot three times with that apple tone, then let go. The Mac reboots again.)

This did not fix the problem and I was not told what these steps were supposed to do. They have asked me to purchase a three pin version of the adapter and see if that fixes my
problem.
My last MacBook Pro was giving pretty severe jolts towards end of life. Hence a bit concerned.
Question

Has anyone here experienced such a problem?

Is anyone aware of what the above sequence of steps supposed to do?

Also, will this damage the Macbook in some way?

The solution for me was to use the adapter with a three pin extension cord.
Then your notebook is grounded, and no more charges stay on the cover that shock you. :-).
About steps 1-3
In steps 1 and 2, you reset the System Management Controller (SMC Reset) on a Mac that has a battery, which you should not remove on your own. The SMC manages hardware conditions related to temperatures and power consumption. You may also be interested in the question: When should I reset the SMC on a Mac?.
I'm not aware of the shortcut you performed in step 3.

I think it's just dry weather. Try getting a humidifier.


Automator: Save images from a list of URLs in a text file I have a text file with a list of URLs of images from a website. I would like to download them to a folder named Art on my computer.

I have tried Get Contents of TextEdit Document and then Extract URLs from Text, but then I don't understand how to parse each URL and save the image before moving to the next URL.

How can I batch download several images from their URLs?

Let's assume for a second that your image URL's are in a text file located on your desktop... "Image list.txt"

Let's assume each image URL in that file is on a separate line

Let's assume that the "Art" folder is located on your desktop (folder for the downloaded images)

This AppleScript code is all you need

set theList to (path to desktop as text) & "Image list.txt"
set artFolder to (path to desktop as text) & "Art"
set artFolder to quoted form of POSIX path of artFolder

set theImages to read alias theList as list using delimiter linefeed -- get the lines of a file as a list

repeat with i from 1 to count of theImages
    set thisItem to item i of theImages
    do shell script "cd " & artFolder & "; " & "curl -O " & quoted form of thisItem
end repeat

Actually, here is an even better solution.  Save this following AppleScript code in Script Editor.app as an application.  Now you will have two options.

Double clicking on the app in Finder will open a dialog asking you to choose the text file containing the image URLs, then will proceed to download the images.

OR

You can drag the text file containing the image URLs directly onto the app’s icon, in Finder, which will then go ahead and process and download the images in that text file.   (AKA Droplet)

on open theFiles
    --  Handle the case where the script is launched by dropping
    -- a .txt file, containing image URLs,  directly onto this app's icon
    set artFolder to (path to desktop as text) & "Art"
    set artFolder to quoted form of POSIX path of artFolder

    set theImages to read alias theFiles as list using delimiter linefeed

    repeat with i from 1 to count of theImages
        set thisItem to item i of theImages
        do shell script "cd " & artFolder & "; " & "curl -O " & quoted form of thisItem
    end repeat
end open

on run
    --  Handle the case where the script is launched without any dropped files
    set theList to (choose file with prompt ¬
        "Choose Your Text File Containing Image URLs" of type {"txt"} ¬
        default location (path to desktop) ¬
        invisibles false ¬
        without multiple selections allowed) as text

    set artFolder to (path to desktop as text) & "Art"
    set artFolder to quoted form of POSIX path of artFolder

    set theImages to read alias theList as list using delimiter linefeed

    repeat with i from 1 to count of theImages
        set thisItem to item i of theImages
        do shell script "cd " & artFolder & "; " & "curl -O " & quoted form of thisItem
    end repeat
end run

Here is a visual of the droplet in action...

I'm assuming you have a text file with one URL per line. That is important for the following workflow. I'm also assuming you have pure jpg/png URLs, linking direct to the images and not html's URL pages with images inside.

I'll address Safari because chances are high that the browser is installed in your system, but other browsers should work the same way.

1 - Open Safari and go to preferences, general, and set your default File Download Location to your ART folder:

2 - Open Automator, create a new workflow and drag a Run AppleScript action:

3 - Paste the following code:

on run
    set the clipboard to {}
    tell application "TextEdit" to activate
    tell application "System Events"
        key code 126 using command down -- go to the start of the doc (command+up)
        delay 0.1
        key code 124 using {command down, shift down} -- select the first line (commmand+shift+right arrow)
        delay 0.1
        key code 8 using command down -- copy URL (command+C)
        delay 0.1
    end tell
    repeat while (the clipboard) is not "EXIT"
        tell application "Safari" to activate
        tell application "System Events"
            key code 37 using command down -- Open Location (Command+L)
            delay 0.1
            key code 9 using command down -- paste URL (Command+V)
            delay 0.1
            key code 36 -- enter
            delay 3 -- three seconds to begin loading the image, adjust if necessary
            key code 1 using command down -- Save (command+S)
            delay 0.1
            key code 36 -- enter
            repeat while exists window "Save" of application process "Safari"
                delay 0.5 -- wait the save to end
            end repeat
        end tell
        tell application "TextEdit" to activate -- back to textEdit
        tell application "System Events"
            key code 125 -- go to next line
            delay 0.1
            key code 123 using command down -- go to the start of the line (command + left key)
            delay 0.1
            key code 124 using {command down, shift down} -- select the line (commmand+shift+right arrow)
            delay 0.1
            key code 8 using command down -- copy URL (Command+C)
            delay 0.1
        end tell
    end repeat
end run

4 - Place an "EXIT" in the last line of the document so the program will now when the job is done:

5 - Run the workflow

I've tested out and it works fine.


Script that checks for apps with open window asks 'Where is Electron" in Electron apps I have a script that prints the bundle ids for all apps with open windows. When an Electron app is open (for example VSCode) the script asks "Where is Electron" and it shows all apps in the Applications folder except Electron apps. How to fix this behavior?

The Code:

set bundles to {}
tell application "System Events"
   set names to get the name of every process whose visible is true
end tell
repeat with name in names
   set bundles to bundles & id of application name
end repeat

You need to use a different name for your repeat statement’s loop variable - the term name is an AppleScript property and is also in System Events scripting dictionary.  Your usage isn’t generating a syntax error, but it is probably causing more confusion than usual and is winding up targeting the wrong item (welcome to AppleScript).

You can use pipes around variable names like this where there may be a conflict (e.g. |name|), but CJK’s solution also avoids the repeat statement altogether.

tell application "System Events" to return the ¬
    bundle identifier of every process ¬
    whose visible = true