Why do some app spotlight results show the ".app" extension, but not all?

TL;DR

Basically, it's a bug or bug fix introduced in macOS 10.13 High Sierra: Spotlight now respects the Finder setting to show file extensions. Disabling that setting removes the .app extension from Spotlight.

Full-length answer

I know this is a very old question, but I just had a déjà-vu in 10.13 High Sierra; different to this one but with some similarities, so I searched for it and stumbled upon this question and here's my answer:

Apps are in fact directories displayed as if they were a single file; Apple calls that a bundle (despite the Finder naming it "Package" as in "Show Package Contents" in the context menu). Not just applications are bundles, Apple uses bundles also for frameworks, plugins, application extensions, XPI services, certain kind of installer packages, as well as data storage format if stored data consists out of multiple files but shall appear as just one file (e.g. a RTF document with pictures can be stored as a RTFD bundle). Bundles always have a real name, the name of the file entry on disk. So if there is nothing else to display, macOS displays that name everywhere.

However, bundles have a info file inside, named Info.plist, which contains all kind of meta data about the bundle. One thing such an info file can define is a Display Name. If such a display name is set, Finder will display the display name and not the real name of the directory. That is, unless the directory has been re-named, which the Finder can detect if the directory name does not match the bundle name in the Info.plist file. Well, I admit, it's a bit complicated. Let's try it with an example:

The directory is named My App.app
The bundle name in Info.plist is My App
The bundle display name in Info.plist is My Cool App

With that combination, Finder will show the app as My Cool App.app (or just My Cool App if extensions are hidden). As long as (1) and (2) match in name, (3) is displayed.

If I now rename the directory to My Boring App.app, then Finder will display it as My Boring App.app since as soon if (1) and (2) don't match in name, (1) is displayed, as if the user wants his/her app renamed, of course, Finder should display the user chosen name, makes sense, doesn't it?

Complicated enough already? Well, I'm sorry, but it gets even more complicated now. All values in the Info.plist that are displayed to users can be localized, so if your system is set to US English, the bundle display name may be My Cool App, but if the system is set to UK English, it can be My Amazing App. If a localization exists for the current system language, Finder will display that localization, but again, only if the names of (1) and (2) matches, otherwise (1) will win again.

Localizing is done by placing .strings files into bundles into sub-directories that are named <x>.lproj, where <x> can just be a language code, e.g. en.lproj for English, fr.lproj for French, etc. But in can also be language + country, like en_US.lproj, en_GB.lproj, en_AU.lproj, and so on. Inside is a file named InfoPlist.strings and this file can override the base values of the Info.plist file. If no matching localization is found, the values from the base localization are used (named development region) which is also defined by the Info.plist file. If no such localization is defined, the values from the Info.plist are used directly.

Spotlight behaves like Finder, if (1) and (2) match in name (3) is displayed, either directly or from the matching localization. If (3) isn't set, (1) is displayed. But unlike Finder it does not always add the .app extension, even if requested in Finder preferences. I wasn't able to ever find the exact behavior pattern, but a certain combination of setup will prevent Spotlight from showing the extension, regardless of what you have configured. For some users it is fixed by changing the Finder setting and then running sudo mdutil -E / in Terminal (which re-indexes everything). But it's not working for all users, which may have something to do with the chosen language/region.

Basically it's a bug. Either re-indexing fixes it or it can't be fixed. And the behavior was changed by Apple at some macOS release and stayed constant thereafter... that is, until 10.13 High Sierra. All of a sudden all my apps have .app extension in Spotlight, which matches my Finder setting, whereas in 10.12 Sierra no app had an extension in Spotlight, despite the Finder setting, unless I have renamed it or unless I had multiple copies of lying around.


A3 printer for small office support / client visuals from CS6 (Mac) CC (Win)

For the benefit of others in a similar situation - I have a solution. Epson Workforce WF 7610 (Europe) A3+ colour inkjet. You can Google the specs and processor

Highlights
 - Workgroup inkjet so decent processing power / ram to queue jobs for multiple PCs at once
 - Works excellently with Mac OS 10.8 with provided support utilities
 - Ditto Windows 10 boxes and runs over a Win wired network
 - Integrates with Mac Image Capture function for scanning direct to desktop
 - Scanner / Copier bed is full A3 and 10 seconds (fast) on standard resolution
 - A3+ colour print - high quality option with Epson papers and inks (good enough for client first visuals, office print)
 - Draft (standard) A4 B/W print is fast 2 seconds to spool, 3 seconds a page
 - Fax function to print / desktop included (phone line input)
 - Easy, logical set-up with touch screen colour panel
 - Fast start from cold and relatively quite running
 - Connectivity solid with on-board net card / ethernet, direct USB to PC, WiFi including 'air print' mobile phone bridge function, USB Flash, SD card, MS Duo

Caveats?
 - inks expensive but that goes also for HP, Canon, etc (offset by relatively cheap initial purchase - sub £200 Amazon)
 - requires Epson papers / inks for best results (but will take standard copier paper and 3rd party ink)
 - trays a little flimsy (unit itself is solid, will take some knocks)
 - footprint = 55cm x 55cm with front and rear paper feeds (for A3 nothing more than expected)

Would I recommend it?

Yes. Early days for reliability / cost of running although for functions, connectivity (ethernet, USB and WiFi print), ease of set up, Mac support, A3 scanning and workgroup capability I am smiling. Scanning and print quality are subjective to some degree and you can get better / faster obviously for more bucks - both good enough for my needs and if I go beyond this I go external and charge it on to the client (e.g. bound presentation visuals for a corporate).

END


Installing Windows 7 without DVD/Flash Drive - stuck at step 5

Usually the OS X operating system is synchronized with the values stored in the GUID Partition Table (GPT). In other words, partition 4 in the table for disk0 would be be identified as /dev/disk0s4. In your case, the identifier is /dev/disk0s5. The easiest way to resynchronize is to restart the Mac.


iPad Safari scroll bar missing on some webpages

This is not a bug, but a design fault on Apple’s part.

Going to the page you posted, the scroll bar on my own iPad is also not visible, but it is there. Scroll to the top of the page where the dark grey header is and you will see the scroll bar appear.

Visiting this post on my iPad, the scroll bar is visual, and you should be able to see it yourself.

Both are white pages, but the scroll bar is behaving differently, why?

Apple predetermines the color of the scroll bar as the page is loading up, and doesn’t respond actively to what is displayed on the page (here lies the design fault). Until Apple changes how the scroll bar responds to content displayed live, this will continue to be an issue.

If you want to see this in action and if you have an iPad that displays the bar at the bottom of the screen where you swipe up to go home. One page that shows this issue exceptionally well is TheVerge.com. Visit this page and slowly scroll to the bottom paying attention to the “Home Bar” at the bottom and how it reacts to light and dark backgrounds and then the scroll bar, and it’s lack of any response, even disappearing when you reach the white section of the page.


Does mac restart work reliably with restoring open applications and restoring states in every case?

In practice you can't rely on it.

The hooks are there in the OS to allow perfect restoration but each app has to be written to keep track of its changes and most aren't. Often that is the correct design decision as it allow the app to start in a controlled state rather than work out all the possible changes.

If you want the same state don't log out just put the machine to sleep.


Browsing left (up) in column view with no horizontal scroll bar?


After 10.9.2 updated, OSX crashed, contextual menu broken

It is very probably caused by Total Finder app. Try to update it or simply quit it and run again. It worked for me and contextual menu is back.


Cmd+plus now opens Widgets instead of zooming

I was able to fix it by unchecking "Show Dashboard as a space" in Mission Control Preferences. No idea when exactly this change happened or why this fixes it though.

I would have preferred to be able to just re-map the shortcut, but I can't find it anywhere.


Mac book air is not turning on and getting cricket noise when press power button

Chirps/Beeps might indicate a hardware failure on disk or RAM or the power supply. It likely needs to be serviced by either Apple or an authorized Apple repair center if it's under warranty. You can check the warranty and AppleCare coverage here
PS: If it's an older MacBook Air that is out of warranty or out of AppleCare coverage than a 3rd party repair might be the most cost effective.


Personal Hotspot not working over Wi-Fi on iOS 13

I found a workaround which works fine for me.

While connected to the hotspot open a cmd and enter the following commands:

ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

After that, the client gets instantly a correct IP-Adress from the DHCP.


Deleting files on my macbook is not affecting the storage space?

GrandPerspective is a great app to visualize the files taking up the most space on your Mac. Next time you want to delete a file, use GP to scan your computer before and after you empty the Trash, and see what's still taking up space.


IntelliJ IDEA + JBR11 uninstalled but still appears in Spotlight Search

You might have a corrupted spotlight index.

See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716


Unable to copy OSX Installer from external drive to Mac

This is a known bug in the Finder app of OSX. Options you can try :

Instead of drag-dropping you can try right click -> Copy Item and
then paste it on the desktop
Try copying the files through terminal command.
Try making a folder on the desktop, and then copy the files in the newly created folder.

Reference : Apple Discussions.


Sorry, but true call blocking can be only done by a carrier. However, if you wish to allow calls only from your contact list, and exclude everyone else, you can use Do Not Disturb feature on your iPhone 4s.


Can I create a boot disk for 10.6 or 10.7 on a PC (to be used on a Mac?)

Is it humanly possible, if you received an ISO from some source, that you could create a burnable disc from a PC? Yes, no reason why not.
That being said, if you have upgraded the firmware on a recent-enough MacBook Pro, and have a fast enough connection to pull down a OS install disc, you could use internet recovery:

Apple's Knowledge Base Article for Internet Recovery-Capable Macs

I believe this won't work if you hadn't run this updater on your Mac after already upgrading to Lion, but it would pull down a recovery partition of less than a GB first, from which you could at least browse the web with the 'get help online' Safari Kiosk mode, or go on to do a full reinstall.

Beyond the 10.6 disc, there is also a USB drive for Lion that can be purchased as well, of course. Good luck


Automator workflow to print 4 copies of 1 image on 1 page

Set up your Automator Recipe

Try doing this to set up Automator:

Create a folder named "Photo Booth To Print"
Open up the Automator app

Now inside automator...

Go to File->New and choose Folder Action.
You'll see this bar inside your newly created (still blank) automated workflow:
Activate the dropdown menu, and find the Photo Booth To Print folder you created in step 1, and select that.
On the left side, you'll see a search bar. Search for "Print" and choose "Print Finder Items". Pop that into your workflow (i.e. drag Print Finder Items into the center part)
Press Command-S to save this Folder Action, and give it a name. Automator will save the Folder Action, attaching it to the selected folder. Now whenever you place anything into this folder, the document will print automatically. (Be careful with your newfound powers, you don't want to accidentally print stuff!)
Double-check you did this right by two-finger-clicking on the Photo Booth To Print folder in Finder and choosing Services -> Folder Actions Setup. (If you only have a few Services, you may not have a Services menu and will instead see the Folder Actions Setup menu item at the bottom of the contextual menu.) The dialog box that displays will show all the folders to which you have attached Folder Actions. When you click on the folder name, you’ll see the Folder Actions assigned to them.

Now use this with Photo Booth

Now, at your party, pull up Photo Booth and take your photo (I recommend taking using the first mode of three listed (the leftmost in the photo mode selector options) to get four photos taken at once, put into one compiled photo. Once you take this photo, it'll show up in the bar beneath the photo frame; from there, two-finger click on the just-captured photo, choose export, and export it into the Photo Booth To Print folder, at which point it will print automatically.

Sources and see also

Lifehacker's guide to making a DIY photo booth with Automator and the Photo Booth app: http://lifehacker.com/5689177/diy-photo-booth-using-a-mac-and-automator
Source of Automator Information: http://www.macworld.com/article/1167277/software-utilities/three-great-folder-actions.html
Learn more about what Automator can do: http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/what-automator-can-do-for-you-3605538/


iMessage no longer working on Mac after AppleID change

The vast majority of the time when iMessage no longer delivers to a Mac (or iOS device) is due to the time settings where the clock has drifted.

I would work through this checklist as you rule out any account related issues (especially the part about appleid.apple.com to verify the account isn't locked):

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3970

It also covers a big reason why messages fail to be delivered even if you can sign in - firewall settings and networking issues between the Mac and the APNS servers that alert your computer a message is coming and help deliver the message itself.


How do I stop the dock from moving to my second monitor?

Unfortunately, there is no way to prevent the Dock from moving from monitor to monitor in any version of OS X.


You can use Preview. Tools Menu/Annotate/Text, or it's the top right icon next to the search box, then icons appear below for annotation choices.


Debug iOS Application using distribution certificate

It's completely normal. Distribution certificates are not meant for development, and XCode won't let you debug that application, that's why it gets disconnected from the app.

To see the logs in the device, if the application is still being executed, you can use one log viewer, like http://lemonjar.com/iosconsole/


My ipod is stolen, will i be able to retain progress on games

Depends on the game.

Some games store data on the phone that is only recoverable from your backup, if you have one.

Other games/apps store data on the developer's servers and will be available when you sign back into the game or Game Center on your device.

For the Game "Clash of Clans" the save progress is matched with your Game Centre account.


Does it help to fully reset a Mac once a year to keep it "healthy"?

Resetting your MacBook Pro to factory settings each year definitely should not be necessary. I do not personally experience any performance problems or functionality problems even though I haven't "reset" in a decade (i.e. I migrate my existing system over when I buy new hardware).

If you do chose to factory reset, which I wouldn't recommend, you would need to sign into iCloud again after reinstalling. If you have your Keychain synced to iCloud, you don't need to start from scratch in amassing passwords and logins. However, you would probably need to login into various stuff once again (like for example login to Adobe subscriptions, Office 365 subscriptions, mail subscriptions, etc.).


Cron mail notifies error of suspicious unknown script

It looks a lot like some kind of malware.

If you do not know where xSF and sandastros.np came from, I would consider the computer compromised and do a full format and reinstall.


Where is the icon used in this dialogue box?

Lock Icon

The lock icon is located in

/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemAppearance.bundle/Contents/Resources/Assets.car

Install Theme Engine

Note: You may want to download the released version.
Open the file
Select Security
Drag the icon to the desktop to convert to a png

Finder Icon

macOS just places the app icon in front of it.


Use multiple speakers to play 2 ch audio

Audio MIDI Setup to the rescue!

Open Audio MIDI Setup which is located in Applications > Utilities.

Click the + icon in the bottom-left hand side and choose Create Multi-Output Device.

When the multi-output device is selected, click the Built-In Output, and the Cinema Display's output audio devices.

After this is done, open System Preferences and click the Sound category. Under the Output tab, choose the Multi-Output device.

Any applications that were open when you started this process may have to be restarted in order to pick up the change in default sound devices. Some do, some don't.

I do believe that should do it.


White banding on iMac while logging in. What does it mean?

Brief follow-up note: it turns out this Mac did have hardware problems.

I took it to the Apple Store a few days after writing the original post, and their more thorough diagnostics discovered a problem with the disk (specifically, the hard drive portion of the Fusion Drive). I got the hard drive replaced under warranty, and after a year I haven‘t seen the symptoms again – I assume this was just an artefact of a failing disk.


extract if_index without grep from scutil --dns

If you look at the executable itself, /usr/sbin/scutil with the strings command you can see that those strings are hardcoded directly into the executable.

$ strings /usr/sbin/scutil | grep 'if_index'
  if_index : %d (%s)

Additionally this CLI's output remains the same when you try changing the LANG=.. or LC_ALL=.. environment variables. For example:

$ LANG="zh_CN.UTF-8" scutil --dns | grep 'if_index'
  if_index : 10 (en0)

$ LC_ALL="zh_CN.UTF-8" scutil --dns | grep 'if_index'
  if_index : 10 (en0)

Doing this with another CLI tool such as git translates the output:

$ LC_ALL="zh_CN.UTF-8" git --help
用法：git [--version] [--help] [-C <路径>] [-c <名称>=<取值>]
           [--exec-path[=<路径>]] [--html-path] [--man-path] [--info-path]
           [-p | --paginate | -P | --no-pager] [--no-replace-objects] [--bare]
           [--git-dir=<路径>] [--work-tree=<路径>] [--namespace=<名称>]
           <命令> [<参数>]

这些是各种场合常见的 Git 命令：

开始一个工作区（参见：git help tutorial）
   clone      克隆一个仓库到一个新目录
   init       创建一个空的 Git 仓库或重新初始化一个已存在的仓库

All this leads me to believe that the output will not change.


Spotlight / Finder - search words within files and preview occurrence

I develop a file search tool that is based upon Spotlight: HoudahSpot.

In addition to the Quick Look preview, HoudahSpot provides a text preview. This shows a plain text version of the selected search result. If you found the file by searching for text content, text preview will automatically highlight the words you searched for and scroll to the first occurrence. You can also search within text preview.

If you searched by text content, HoudahSpot will also pass the text you searched for down to the application used for opening the file. In many applications you can then press command-G (find next) to highlight the first occurence of that text.


Need help in figuring out why my MacBook (mid 2012) crashes even after reinstalling ElCapitan

When you have spontaneous problems with your Mac, there are several things you can try to resolve the issue (listed in order of increasing difficulty):

Reset SMC
Reset PRAM/NVRAM
Swap out memory modules*
Swap out hard drive*

The SMC (System Management Controller) handles a lot of low-level system components. Fan issues, power issues, or spontaneous program unresponsiveness can occur if SMC is having problems.

NVRAM (Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory, or PRAM in older Macs) stores system settings that the Mac needs to access quickly. Resetting it doesn't always fix anything you are describing above, but it also never hurts to try it as part of your troubleshooting.

If you have a bad memory module, you'll get weird crashes and system hangs. If you have multiple chips installed (e.g. two 8 GB modules) try removing one, then if no issues, switch and run the system with the other chip for a while. Possible that only one of the two is bad.

If your hard drive is bad, you'll get periodic problems and unpredictable behavior. Unfortunately, a bad hard drive can also mean lost user data... so hopefully you have backups if your drive turns out to be the problem.

(*For those with newer Macs - swapping out memory or hard drives is obviously not a possibility if they're soldered to the system board.)


Where does OS X get defaults from in Guest User Web access Parental Controls?

Using online tools it appears that as of this date/time that is a hard coded IP address from the app called Telegram or Telegram Messenger.

Why it's hard coded into the app as IP address doesn't make sense, but it seems to be where it is coming from.


xcode 6.4 + OX X 10.10 Yosemite - Problem with all simulators

Resolved the issue. As I am running two monitors I was trying to open a new tab in safari, while Xcode simulator was selected. Cmd T triggers the simulator to run in slow motion for further testing. Nothing to do with the new Xcode or OS X update


The serial number may be claimed - correctly or incorrectly, you have two options.

If you can get to settings see if you can determine the exact address of the management server (get screenshots) and then try to remove the profiles.
If that doesn’t work, you have to handle this administratively with the School and/or Apple. Collect all your receipts for purchase so you can help clarify how you came into possession of a device that’s marked as school owned.


Can iTunes pause a specified amount of time after a particular track?

You're asking two questions here.

  It's possible to get iTunes to start a song in the middle?

Yes, for each individual track, you can press CMD+I (get info) and get to this tab:

Where you can check Start Time, Stop Time or both and specify a time.
Part of a Gapless album is useful too, since it will not leave a gap time between tracks (nice when you have live albums or such).-

*Is it possible to get iTunes to pause for several seconds after playing a song?*

This is not natively possible within iTunes and you'll have to perform further research, try to find an App that does it and/or create some sort of Applescript. But doesn't seem like something natural to do, so it may not be easy to achieve (automatically).

A simple trick you could employ is to record a 30 second silence (you can probably find them if you google, it's used for ringtones) and play that in between your playlist.


How to use iMessages without giving out phone number?

You can enable the iCloud email address under Settings → Messages → Send & Receive. After which just tell your students to compose a new message to your email address. They can even maintain your contact in their address books with only your email, not number.

Also, to prevent accidentally giving out your number, use email address to compose new messages. This setting can be found in the same place.


What options are available to _losslessly_ trim mp4/m4v video on 10.8 or above?

iMovie (not lossless, but better than before)

iMovie v10 (released some time after the question was originally asked) now better handles more media types, so avoids the import re-encode for most H.264 (mp4, m4v, mov, AVHDC, mts, mt2s) content.

It will still, however, re-encode on export so cannot be technically lossless—another new feature, however, is the ability to customise the export quality, which can be closer-to-lossless. I suspect this part of the answer can apply equally to other 'project driven' video editing software (e.g. Premiere or Final Cut) because I think they all generally re-encode on output, though are usually very easy to use for precise trimming.

Personally, I generally think a single re-encode isn't a huge problem, but understand you did specifically ask for a lossless solution, so...

Lossless (but way more complicated!)

There are technical limitations as to how precisely you can cut a video without having to re-encode at least some part of it, and it basically depends on the i-frame frequency. If every frame is an i-frame, you can cut anywhere, but if they're only every few seconds, then you can only cut losslessly at those i-frames without losing content or having to re-encode (at least part of the stream) so it can start with an i-frame.

ffmpeg

This SO Q&A specifically raises the question of how to cut between i-frames using ffmpeg. I don't know of any GUI apps to do this, but basically you run a command something like the following:

ffmpeg -i input.m4v -vcodec copy -acodec copy -ss 00:01:20.000 -t 00:37:50.000 output.m4v

The two times specified are start and duration, and can be specified either as seconds or hh:mm:ss.ss, and the -acodec copy and -vcodec copy tell ffmpeg not to re-encode.

I'm not exactly sure what happens if you cut too early, but I think the video is essentially blank (or maybe corrupt, depending on player) until it encounters an i-frame. So you'll probably want to find the nearest i-frame before your cut. This answer solves that problem using ffprobe and awk, albeit a little awkwardly. Essentially you use ffprobe to scan the frames and find the nearest keyframe (flags=K) before your ideal cut-point. Full output for each frame of the video can be seen like this:

ffprobe -select_streams v -show_frames <INPUT>

The linked answer supplies this command to find a keyframe before a specific time:

ffprobe -select_streams v -show_frames -v quiet INPUT.mp4 |
awk -F= '
  /pict_type=/ { if (index($2, "I")) { i=1; } else { i=0; } }
  /pkt_pts_time/ { if (i && ($2 >= 150)) print $2; }
' | head -n 1

And finally, if you really need to cut somewhere between two i-frames, you can split the video and re-join. Based on the info from this answer, it should be something like:

ffmpeg -f concat -i list_of_videos.txt -c copy OUTPUT.mp4

Where list_of_videos.txt is a simple text file listing the files you want to concatenate.

Summary

iMovie is probably good enough for most cases (since v10), and very easy.

ffmpeg can do it losslessly (or very close to losslessly), with a bit of fiddling; level of difficulty depends on how picky you are about the precise starting point, and frequency of i-frames.


Gifting/sharing app to Family child's iPad without App Sharing?

As you know, one of the benefits of Family Sharing is that one person (the Organiser) can take responsibility for purchases of all apps, books, music, etc. on family devices even when the users of those devices have their own Apple ID allowing contacts, messaging, etc. to be kept separate from those of the Organiser.
That is the method you should be using even if there are some frustrations.  You could just add your son's account to the 'family' leaving your partner to manage her own purchases (if that is appropriate for your family).
You can't just transfer/share an app from your Apple ID to another Apple ID. That would be open to abuse. Family sharing was introduced to satisfy your needs whilst allowing Apple to maintain control of the use of purchases.


Using a headset with a Macbook pro mid 2009

That symbol indicates "Audio line in/optical digital audio in port".

It is a combo port, and it supports Optical connection.


Backing up Photos library to external hard drive

If you started a new library from scratch - read: did not convert from a previous iPhoto or Aperture library - then the Your Library Name.photoslibrary bundle contains everything.

Exception: If you are using a referenced library (Photos menu > Preferences > General > Importing: "Copy files" box is not checked) then you need to back up the folder(s) where your actual photos are located as well.

If you did convert from a previous library, and have not removed it, you should back up both to be safe (though theoretically backing up just one should back up everything).


The TV app currently cannot accept video content synced from iTunes. There are 2 explanations:

iTunes itself needs an upgrade to understand that videos should be synced to the TV app instead of the Videos app
Apple has decided that you should not be able to sync video content from the iTunes app at all, only download from iTMS or stream from approved providers.

I think it is the first one. This is a bug which hopefully Apple will resolve soon with an update.

In the meantime, just install the VLC app (free) on your iPad. By connecting the device to your computer and using iTunes to transfer home videos to VLC on your iPad for viewing.


How can I get email to "me" to email to my email address?

You can't.
Because of the design of iOS, there is no native way to accomplish this. The reason for this is that the address field in mail and messages are almost exactly identical, not just in looks, but in function.
In messages, you can actually send a text to me, but it will send whatever you said straight to 63 (see number pad). This is because some companies hand out shortcodes, and say something like Text APP to WMART (96278) to download the Walmart app!. users can either punch in 96278 into messages, or they can punch in the much more memorable WMART into the address field and still have the message go back to the right place.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that mail will actually try to send an email to me if you hit send. This may be a planned feature for within organizations or something, or it could be an oversight. But due to the design of iOS, you are unable to accomplish what you wanted.


Why does my macbook always shut down on recovery?

Boot the Mac from a known-good local OS.

You can install an OS on to USB drives (HDD, SSD, flash) or even set up a local net boot server, but you'll need to get logs of how far into the boot process the computer gets to diagnose what subsystem is failing.

A hardware technician might remove all of the components that are not needed to boot the system and ensure that the RAM and logic board are working, but I wouldn't recommend starting hardware diagnosis before you've finished the software analysis and brought a known good OS of a proper version for your Mac to the suspect hardware.


LG UltraFine 5K Display dim each time I startup

Since you travel to and from home/work with your MBP fully powered off, I don't think resetting the SMC will make a difference. However, it may be worth resetting your NVRAM.

Resetting the NVRAM on Late-2016 MacBook Pro models

Your Mac uses Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). To reset the NVRAM on all Late-2016 MacBook Pro models (with and without Touch Bar) follow these steps:

Shut down your machine. Yes, a full shut down, not just logging out.
Press the power button and then immediately press the commandoptionPR keys.
Keep these keys pressed down for at least 20 seconds!
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note: When you log back in you may need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).


Can I use an Apple Homepod as a speaker and microphone for WebEx, Skype voice, etc?

Unfortunately no. It is not possible to use the HomePod's built-in microphone for recording audio to a Mac. You cannot Bluetooth pair the HomePod to a Mac in order to use it as a combined speaker/microphone either.

Other products exists that does what you're looking for. For example I'm using the Logitech Group speaker/microphone combination for web conferences. However, it is quite a different product from the HomePod.


Do the wi-fi communications from Mac to Mac travel through the access point?

They go through the AP.

It's not like the MACs "see" each other just like that in the same network, it's the AP that "tells" them who's in the network. All data recieved and transmitted on a Wi-Fi network must pass through the router. The network is not triangular, all devices in a network except for the AP of course have only 1 connection ( MAC1---AP---MAC2 ).


How to clean computer from recovery mode terminal? Stopped working after had about 33MB left

Booted to Recovery Mode your boot volume is a mounted base macOS image residing in a subfolder of the recovery partition. It doesn't contain a /Users folder and if so it would be the wrong one. So cd to your main volume instead.

To check and modify your standard boot volume you have to get its volume name and device name first. Open Terminal in the menubar > Utilities:

mount #get volume names and disks
diskutil list #get disk identifiers of internal disk and CoreStorage: usually disk0 and disk2 for CoreStorage Logical Volume
diskutil verifyDisk /dev/disk0
diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk2 #CoreStorage
diskutil verifyVolume /dev/disk0s2 #no CoreStorage

Try to repair any error by replacing the suffix verify with repair.

Now cd to the volume (example name here: "Macintosh HD"):

cd /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD
pwd

Now cd to the Users folder and your user folder:

cd Users
ls -la
cd username #with username: usually your short username

Remove dispensable user files. Other places to remove files from are /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/private/tmp, /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/cores or /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/private/var/vm. Replace "Macintosh\ HD" with the name of your main volume here.

Addition: if your disk is not automatically mounted in recovery mode (e.g., because it is encrypted), you can mount and decrypt it by quitting the Terminal utility and going to the Disk Utility. Select your drive in the left column and mount it using the mount button (in the window at top right). The system will ask for an administrator password to decrypt. After mounting you can quit the Disk Utility and go back to the Terminal again. The disk will stay mounted.


How do I convince iTunes to play a podcast item I've manually replaced

Delete the corrupted episode
Opt/Alt-click on the triangle in front of the Podcast name
All available episodes will be displayed in addition to the ones you already downloaded, together with a button to download them individually


You can remove the partial download by searching for Install in spotlight, then return to the purchased section and re-download the installer.

A reboot will ensure it's not paused or some temporary error has caused the slowness.


Open Finder Preferences, under the tab sidebar you can uncheck what all files or folders youdon't want to be displayed.


Open two applications in full spit screen using Bash script

Get the Magnet app from the App Store, far less effort and does exactly what you want.


Text is handled by default with copy/paste. While it would be possible to create an app that allows text to be sent to TextCrafter (or similar), and a new document to be automatically created from that text, it is not default in iOS.

As a result, the only option is to copy the text (which is available system wide) and paste it into TextCrafter.


Update applications with another users AppleID - possible bug?

If you are on High Sierra or before, you can navigate to the app in the Applications folder, then right click the app and choose Show Package Contents. From the folder that pops up, expand the _MASReceipt folder and delete the receipt file. The app will now update properly.

If you're on Mojave you have to uninstall and reinstall the app.


JPG photo filenames after an iPhone to "Photos app" import

For future iPhone -> computer imports

Using "Image Capture" app instead of "Photos" app solves most of the problems indeed (as explained here: How do I import photos in OS X without using Photos.app?).  Notes:

Set "Keep originals" to disabled in order to have HEIC files automatically converted to JPG during import (I'm not sure if my children's computers will be able to understand HEIC files easily in 70 years, but surely JPG will be supported!)
"Delete after import" is important.
At the end of the import, I had "Error 9937" for a few MOV files. Then redo the export for these files with "Keep originals" enabled.

For an export already done with random filenames

1) First run a script that groups variations of the same photo, such as:

DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7.jpeg
DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7_1_105_c.jpeg
DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7_4_5005_c.jpeg

This can be done easily with Python with:

import glob, os
H = dict()
for f in glob.glob('*.jpeg'):
    h = f[:36]
    H.setdefault(h, []).append(f)

Then for each group, you can keep the file with the shortest filename (e.g. DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7.jpeg) and delete the others (with os.remove(...)).

2) Run a Python script that transforms a random filename DE017ACB-5ABD-4113-B110-95DABF7F28F7.jpeg to 20200502_120003.jpg based on the datetime stored in the EXIF metadadata

import glob, os, PIL.Image, datetime

for f in glob.glob('*.jpeg'):
    with PIL.Image.open(f) as img:
        exif_data = img._getexif()
    if exif_data == None:
        # do something here
        continue
    model, software, dt = exif_data.get(272, ''), exif_data.get(305, ''), exif_data.get(306, '')
    newfname = datetime.datetime.strptime(dt, '%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S').strftime('%Y%m%d_%H%M%S') + '.jpg' if dt != '' else f
    # rename the file with the new filename
    # and also move it in a specific folder according to model/software
    # special case to handle: filename collisions


How can I figure out the culprit with internet hiccups my wife is experiencing?

Update to latest OS X 10.10.5 and iOS 8.4. Both the updates solve the annoying Internet issues.  The issues were frequent disconnection in regular intervals, slow Internet speed etc. In Yosemite, Apple introduced the troubling Discoveryd component for networking which was the main cause. It has been replaced in OS X 10.10.4 and iOS 8.4. Install the updates and your Internet should work properly.


How do I add a service to Terminal's "New Remote Connection" window?

It turns out the answer had been on the screen all along. There's a + button under both the Services side and the Servers side. You can add to both.


Take a look at Maximizer. It should work for all apps but I haven't checked on it's support. You could also edit app preferences.


Google recommends the following configuration for Gmail on Mail.app OS X:

From the Mail menu, click Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors
Drafts:
Store draft messages on the server > leave unchecked
Sent:
Store sent messages on the server > leave unchecked
Junk:
Store junk messages on the server > checked
Delete junk messages when > Never
Trash:
Move deleted messages to the Trash mailbox > leave unchecked
Store deleted messages on the server > leave unchecked

Also, trash gets emptied on its own on Gmail; mail older than 30 days gets deleted automatically, so other than particular workflows or because of lack of space on the server or locally, deleting mail already on the Trash folder should not be a preocupation.
I've seen tweaks and counter-suggestions from other reputable sources, I'm not linking them here because they are fairly old.
That said, Joe Kissell and others accuse Gmail of not following standard IMAP implementations –so much so that Mavericks accommodated its interaction with Gmail entirely to avoid duplication and other problems–, and that could be the source of many of the problems.


What exactly does "Disconnect from iPhone" do?

What exactly does this command do?

This command disconnects your MacBook's Wi-Fi connection from your iPhone's hotspot. Clicking on disconnect will not turn off the Wi-Fi on your MacBook.

  Can't I just turn off Wi-Fi on my Mac, or select a different Wi-Fi access point to disconnect? What problem does this new feature solve?

If you turn off the Wi-Fi on your MacBook, it will certainly be disconnected from the iPhone's hotspot (or any hotspot/access point for that matter). If you select a different Wi-Fi hotspot/access point, MacBook would still first disconnect from the iPhone's hotspot.

With the recent versions of iOS and macOS, Apple has streamlined the process of accessing Internet on your Mac, via the mobile data of your iPhone. If your iPhone (logged in with the same Apple ID as your Mac) has an active data plan, your Mac automatically shows the option to connect to mobile hotspot, even without you turning it on on your iPhone.

Your Mac also offers to connect to the mobile hotspot on your iPhone if you are not connected to any Wi-Fi access point, and do not have Internet connectivity.

Disconnecting from the iPhone's hotspot will stop the Mac from consuming data via your mobile data plan, and can save you from consuming data unnecessarily and unknowingly (which is generally paid for as consumed) by some apps/processes running on your Mac.


Chrome in full screen weird behavior when pressing option + command + M

Yeah it's a visual bug. Option + Command + M is a shortcut to minimise all the windows of the frontmost app to the Dock.

However, you should not be able to minimise windows which have been put in full screen mode. Most apps will simply not respond to the minimise shortcut if they are in full screen, but Chrome will go black.

You can restore the windows by clicking on the Chrome tab in the Dock.


I suggest that you try the “Paste and match style” menu command, right below “Paste” - the corresponding shortcut is ⇧–⌥–⌘-V. It will paste the content, but strip all the associated formatting.


Adding a line break to a shell output in AppleScript

In the correct context, Unix uses \n or 0x0A.

mac $ echo -e ".\nhi\n."
.
hi
.
mac $

If you use command substitution ($(...)) newlines will be stripped. From man bash:

  Bash performs the expansion by executing command and replacing the command substitution with the standard output of the command, with any trailing newlines deleted. Embedded newlines are not deleted, but they may be removed during word splitting.

# avoid bash from messing with string, since $z is quoted in the echo.
mac $ z=$(echo -e "L: 82%\nR: 88%")
mac $ echo "$z"
L: 82%
R: 88%
mac $

# With command splitting since the variable $Z isn't in quotes.
mac $ z=$(echo -e "L: 82%"; echo -e "R: 88%")
mac $ echo $z
L: 82% R: 88%

mac $ echo -e "L: 82%"; echo -e "R: 88%"
L: 82%
R: 88%
mac $

I'd just parse the output and add in the Applescript reserve word return.
assume the Unix output is in fromUnix

global debug
set debug to 0

log alterString(fromUnix, "%", "%"&return)

-- ------------------------------------------------------
(*
alterString
  thisText is the input string to change
  delim is what string to change.  It doesn't have to be a single character.
  replacement is the new string

  returns the changed string.
*)

on alterString(thisText, delim, replacement)
    global debug
    if debug ≥ 5 then log "in ~~~ alterString ~~~"
    if debug ≥ 6 then
        hexDumpFormatOne("alterString: input text, thisText,", thisText)
        log "alterString: delim is -->" & delim & "<--"
        hexDumpFormatOne("alterString: input search string, delim,", delim)
        log "alterString: replacement is " & replacement
    end if
    set resultList to {}
    set {tid, my text item delimiters} to {my text item delimiters, delim}
    try
        set resultList to every text item of thisText
        set text item delimiters to replacement
        set resultString to resultList as string
    on error
        log "alterString: ==>error altering the string. "
        set resultString to thisText
    end try
    set my text item delimiters to tid
    if debug ≥ 6 then hexDumpFormatOne("alterString: resultString", resultString)
    return resultString
end alterString


How do I change how often the Mac App Store in High Sierra checks for updates or notifies me about them?

Yes, you can do this quite easily.
By default the Mac App Store app will check for updates once every week, but you can change this by running a terminal command. Follow these steps:

Launch the Terminal app (by default it's located in the Utilities folder within your Applications folder)

Copy and paste the following command into your Terminal window:
defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate ScheduleFrequency -int 7

The number at the end represents the number of days, so change the ‘7’ at the end to the number of days you’d prefer (i.e. if you change the ‘7’ to ’10’ then it’ll only check for updates every 10 days)

Press Enter

And that’s it! The Mac App Store should now only check for updates as often as you set in the terminal command.


The caching issue is specific to your app, not a generic iOS problem. The solution would have to be internal to your app, and thus implemented by your developers.


Searching in reverse is apparently how iTerm's search works by design (see https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/issues/4491).

As a user, I also find this design decision confusing.

If you would like to make Find Next / Find Previous in iTerm behave consistently with other apps, here are the proper keybinding overrides to add in System Preferences > Keyboard.

Note that I had to restart iTerm for the keybindings to fully take effect.


Can you turn off auto-complete/auto-correct in mobile Safari? It's awful for SO

Yes, you can turn auto-correction off. But unfortunately not for specific apps or websites.

Open the settings app
General > Keyboards
Turn Auto-Correction off


I'd recommend using Homebrew to install CocoaPods.

If you are not already using Homebrew, it is a package manager for macOS, hugely popular among developers of all types. It makes installing packages like CocoaPods hassle free.

To install Homebrew, follow the instructions on the homepage

  Paste that at a Terminal prompt.

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Homebrew requires Xcode Command Line Tools to be installed and setup (which I am assuming you already have as you are trying to install CocoaPods, implying you are developing for iOS).

Once Homebrew is setup, simply run:

brew install cocoapods

to install CocoaPods.


iOS 7 iAd Implementation & iAd Network Temporarily Unavailable

I have the exact same issue , my app rolled out to the app store today.

Some people say that it takes a couple of days for production ads to show up in new apps
Can anyone confirm?


It seems likely that your "factory reset" was actually you deleting macOS and everything else from the disk on your Mac. Hopefully you had a backup as doing this erased EVERYTHING on the computer.

The way forward is to use internet recovery to reinstall macOS and then you can restore your applications and documents, pictures, etc. using whatever backup you have standing by for just such an event.


External hard drive I use for Time Machine corrupted, won't mount

You’ve got the classic dilemma.
How much would you pay to get your data back? If you allow fsck to “repair” the drive, it might repair the volume structure by removing references to legitimate files. But to learn that, you have to pay for data recovery.
You could say yes and let it repair - it’s often a small error and quickly resolved. But, with Time Machine - you could also wait weeks if there are hundreds of backup intervals of hundreds of thousands of files and Disk Utility chooses to check each and every one.
For sure - go get a new external and set up a new backup set. Or skip the problem entirely and just erase this disk and see if it’s fine with the next backup.
I’d make an estimate of your value of time / the data / getting a new drive. Good luck with your decision. There’s no “easy” answer since the trade offs are uncertain.
Here’s some relevant posts covering how many days it takes to copy files off a working drive...

Clone Time Machine volume
Repair Time Machine sparsebundle that will no longer mount
Is it unusual for "Verify Disk" on Disk Utilities to take so long on a Time Machine drive?


How does the Airport Access Control work?

First of all, I would suggest setting this up with the Time Capsule first (unplug the AirPort Express). Then, once you have it working on the Time Capsule, you can duplicate it with the AirPort Express.

Option 1

If you want to lock things down as much as possible, then "No Access" should be the default:

And then create a new entry for the cell phone for when you do want to allow access:

However, that will mean that you have to create entries for all of your other devices as well.

Option 2

So your alternative is to make the default "Everyone is welcome":

But then specify when the cell phone is allowed to access:

Which to try?

I would use Option 1 unless you have so many other devices connecting that it would be impractical.

Option 2 seems like it would be easier to setup, but I have to admit I have not tried it myself.

Time Zone

Time Zone information is set here:

Note that I am still using AirPort Utility 5.6.1 because I find it a lot easier to use than AirPort Utility 6.

You can use 5.6.1 on Mountain Lion, despite what the installer will tell you.

See http://www.tuaw.com/2013/01/22/use-automator-to-get-the-airport-utility-5-6-1-working-on-os-x-1/ and http://www.macworld.com/article/1167965/mountain_lion_and_the_ancient_airport_base_station.html for details on how to install it.


MacBook Pro strange white screen upon rebooting mouse and trackpad not working

The first thing I would do is reset the NVRAM.

Resetting the NVRAM

Your Mac uses Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory (NVRAM). To reset the NVRAM on your MacBook Pro model follow these steps:

Fully shut down your machine.
Press the power button and then immediately press the commandoptionpr keys.
Keep these keys pressed down for at least 20 seconds!
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

Note:**Assuming this resolves the issue and you can log back in fine, you ***may* need to readjust some of your system preferences (e.g. speaker volume, screen resolution, startup disk selection, time zone information, etc).

If you still have problems after doing this, let me know.


how to reactive the lost mode on iPhone 5

It's explained in http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2702:
Remove an iOS device you no longer have
If you no longer have the iOS device because you gave it away or sold it, you need to remotely erase it before you can remove it.

Sign in to icloud.com/#find with your Apple ID (the one you use with iCloud).
If you’re using another iCloud app, click the app’s name at the top of the iCloud.com window, then click Find My iPhone.

Click All Devices, then select the device.

Click Erase [device], then enter your Apple ID password. Because the device isn’t lost, don’t enter a phone number or message.
If the device is offline, the remote erase begins the next time it’s online. You’ll receive an email when the device is erased.

When the device is erased, click Remove from Account.
All your content is erased and someone else can now activate the device.


TL;DR: To do a perfect clean wipe and reinstall in APFS now you need the terminal in recovery in addition to Disk Utility. It has to do with the container which is the new base volume scheme in APFS.

For your information, I upgraded my 2017 MBP to High Sierra since beta 9, and decided to clean wipe and reinstall immediately afterwards (makes me feel better reassured with all the APFS conversion). I checked the output

diskutil apfs list

both before and after, and realized how my recovery volume inside the new APFS container has grown in size from ~500 MB to 1.1 GB.

Not letting that go, I did another clean install when the GM candidate arrived and sure enough the recovery has grown by another ~500 MB to 1.6GB. Not that this is likely going to happen to you but disk space is still disk space - Macintosh HD actually shrinks even under the shared volume scheme. With the arithmetic progression I'm pretty sure the recovery volume is not being overwritten but rather added upon every clean install.

After some time figuring how some of the things now work in APFS I found the caveat. When I wipe my disk through Disk Utility within recovery I can only wipe the Macintosh HD volume that sits within the

Container disk1

but not the container or the disk itself like we've been doing pre-APFS. Even when you show all volumes in Disk Utility you'll get an error message if you do that. So the other 3 volumes (Preboot, Recovery, VM) are untouched - I was just doing a somewhat "unclean wipe".

The workaround is, with APFS now we have to open up terminal under utilities in recovery, then do

diskutil apfs deleteContainer disk0s2

assuming your container is linked there. Now it will create a single empty volume named "Untitled" under your physical disk media as shown in Disk Utility.

We're not done yet - you have to go to that disk, e.g. "APPLE SSD...", then click erase in APFS format named Macintosh HD (or any name you wish), in order to set up the correct APFS container structure ready for you to install the OS back in place. The other 3 volumes sharing the container will not be there yet, but fear not, they will be automatically created when you install the OS.


Allow access to www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies, but not www.bbc.co.uk

This seems resolved in 10.11 El Capitan (and perhaps also 10.10 Yosemite... haven't tested there).

Specifically, the following now works (and is what I wanted):

set "Allow access to only these websites"
visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/ in Safari
grant access
access is now granted when visiting http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/ and pages with the same URL prefix, eg http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/topics
access is denied to pages on the same domain with a different URL prefix, eg http://www.bbc.co.uk/, or http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer.


wacked a directory from the command line

Unfortunately there is no way to recover from that, aside from restoring from a backup. Command line utilities don't have an undo command (and they don't typically delete to the Trash).

lost+found wouldn't help either, since that is only used when a filesystem recovery utility has found filesystem corruption.


VeraCrypt - Encryption of Host Protected Area on my Macbook Pro 13"

Download a decent but free partition tool for Windows like MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition 9 and check for a HFS+ volume at the end of the disk. The size is ~650 MB and the GUID type: 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECA.

If it doesn't exist anymore - after installing Windows - go ahead and encrypt the whole drive.

If it exists, try to boot to Internet Recovery Mode with cmdaltR to check if it works with your network setup. If you have been successful (you will see a little spinning globe and boot to a recovery screen), reboot to Windows and delete the Recovery HD-partition. Expand your Windows partition and encrypt the whole disk with VeraCrypt afterwards.
Using only Windows, the Mac Recovery HD partition on your disk device is almost useless.

Booted to Internet Recovery Mode you will always be able to reinstall a current Mac OS X given that you have a decent internet connection.


If you have another computer that can support target disk mode, simply boot with T held and connect per your MacBook (usb or thunderbolt or FireWire are all possible target disk mode). Your Mac is now a hard drive to copy / recover the data.

If not, Assuming you do not have a current Time Machine Backup then...

If you can boot to the Recovery HD, then attach an external USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt drive (whichever works for you since you didn't state what Mac you have, and boot to Recovery HD and then use Disk Utility to make a Disk Image of your Home Folder to the external drive.  Or a Disk Image of whatever Folders you want to save.

In Disk Utility click, File > New > Disk Image from Folder...

In the Select Folder to Image dialog box navigate to the target location, e.g. /Macintosh HD/Users/$USER and select the Folder, then click the Image button.

In the New Image from Folder dialog box, name the image and then navigate to the external target location to be saved and then click the Save button.

In this example, you now have a disk image of your Home folder on an external drive and can copy your User Data back from that image after you clean install the OS.


2018 MacBook Pro + LG 4k display = no 60hz

On my Philips 328P6V monitor, using a USB-C to DisplayPort cable with my MacBook Pro (15 inch model from 2019 with Radeon Pro 560X), I first was stuck at 4k@30Hz and couldn't get 4k@60Hz (even though the cable supports it). I had to do two things:

Enable DisplayPort version 1.2 in the monitor's menu.
Choose "Resolution: Default for display" in my Mac's System Preferences/Displays.

The first point is pretty obvious, given that DisplayPort 1.1 only supports 30Hz for 4k.

The second point, however, is a bit weird. The original setting was:

And this setting delivered 4k@30Hz. Choosing "Default for display" changed it to 60Hz. After that, even re-selecting "Scaled" keeps my monitor at 4k60Hz.

What I believe might have happened is, that when I had first connected the display, it was still set to DisplayPort 1.1, and I assume my Mac remembered this. Resetting SMC/PRAM didn't seem to help. Switching the Resolution selector in the System Preferences probably made macOS rescan the connection and remember the updated DisplayPort 1.2 capability.


Is it possible to stop the execution of a script temporarily on macOS?

If executed from the shell you can type

CTRL + Z

this will send the "terminal stop" signal (SIGTSTP) to the process and the system  won't schedule any more CPU time to the process.

You can then restart it by typing

fg

on the same shell.


How do i automatically send ebooks to my Kindle?

On the Mac You can use automator to set up a folder action for this. I added a filter for mobi files use this folder action directly with my Downloads folder. The Script consists of three actions:

The first action would be this applescript:

on run {input, parameters}
    set theFile to first item in input
    set theFileAsString to theFile as string
    if theFileAsString ends with "mobi" then
        return theFile
    else
        tell me to quit
    end if
end run

Second, you need a "New Mail Message" action with your name@kindle.com email address. Be sure, that the sending mail address is trusted in your kindle settings of your Amazon account.

Third, you would use the "Send Outgoing Messages" action.

Be aware that this script takes only the first mobi file when you drop multiple files at once into your folder.


Moving a folder copies it, no longer moves it

Do you have write permission to the parent folder of the folder? If you don't, you can force moving the folder by holding command while dragging it.

You can see if you have write permission to a folder by running ls -led /path/to/folder:

$ ls -led Desktop/untitled\ folder/
drwxr-xr-x+ 2 lauri  staff  68 Nov 21 08:46 Desktop/untitled folder/
 0: user:test allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity

If the output includes lines for an ACL like above, try removing the ACL with sudo chmod -N /path/to/folder.
If the owner in the third column of the first line is not you, try running sudo chmod $USER /path/to/folder.
If the owner is you but you don't have write permission, or the first column looks like dr-xr-xr-x+ instead of drwxr-xr-x+, try running sudo chmod +w /path/to/folder.


What would cause a certificate installed on iOS to be invalid?

Several things could be problematic.

the device - you can swap the certs on the devices to test that
time settings can cause a cert to fail to be authenticated if it uses some sort of OCSP/CRL revocation check
iOS being more picky than Mac and there being something technically wrong (or just not what iOS wants even if it's technically a valid cert)
provisioning profiles on one or both device that alters the trust policies or networking in a way that blocks some intermediate cert needed to validate the problem cert.


Honestly, I think that's just part of Flash on OS X.  You could test the same YouTube videos in other browsers, as Chrome contains its own Flash rather than use the /Library plug-in version, but every YT video I've played on a Mac has always had that buffering pause a few seconds into it.  (Vimeo is usually smooth.)

There have been some sorta-hacks to set Mac browsers to use HTML5 instead of Flash, however: you might start with Jon Gruber's always-excellent blog though that may be somewhat outdated.


Have you looked into Picasa? It has built in support for importing from iPhoto libraries. Release notes for v. 3.9 here.

You may not want to join the Google universe, though. Resistance is futile.


Android Studio - location for SDK and Project Files in SSD

I needed following settings on my mac -

The Users folder, which usually contains documents, videos, audios, etc are not to be stored on SSD but on HDD.
The Android folder, which contains the Android SDK and Android Projects, to be contained on SSD since it will improve Android studio performance.

Since I was not able to do it by just changing the permissions on my mac, here's what I did -

Create a new APFS Volume on SSD from Disk Utility.
Move the Android Folder on the new APFS Volume.

Above fit perfectly to my needs and does not require any further change, so I am marking this as my answer.


Is there a way to turn off BeamSync of the mouse cursor in Mac OS X?

This blog post helps confirm the problem: http://d43.me/blog/1205/the-cause-for-all-your-mac-os-x-mouse-annoyances/

The experimental tool to fix the lag issue is here (also linked from the blog post)
http://smoothmouse.com/


@scottishwildcat is correct. Most of /System is off-limits to changes so long as System Integrity Protection (SIP) is enabled.

You can temporarily disable SIP by rebooting into Recovery Mode (press and hold Command-R from the time the computer starts until you see the Apple logo), then opening Terminal from the Utilities menu and entering this command:

csrutil disable

Reboot back into Recovery Mode and access the Terminal again. Enter your desired command, then enter this command to re-enable SIP:

csrutil enable

Reboot one more time into macOS as normal and AirPlayUIAgent should have the specified permissions. Note you'll likely need to redo this each time you upgrade macOS.


1) Easy solution: use Sidekick to automatically change your network location (and a whole lot of other settings) depending on which network you are on.

  Aside: Sidekick is the new version of an app which was previously known as NetworkLocation.app but it has been completely re-written. I was a beta-tester for the app, but I'm also a paying customer of it, and have no other connection to the app.

The app costs $29, but there's a demo that you can use to see how it works before you buy. Highly recommended.

2) If you want a free solution, you could write a shell script that runs via launchd. First you'd need a plist file, something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>AbandonProcessGroup</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>localhost.networkmonitor</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/path/to/your/shell/script.sh</string>
    </array>
    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>120</integer>
    <key>WatchPaths</key>
    <array>
        <string>/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Change /path/to/your/shell/script.sh to whatever path you end up making to your shell script (and make sure that the script is executable):

chmod 755 /path/to/your/shell/script.sh

The hard part is the script itself. There are two ways to do this:

"The SSID Way"

Basically you have to find some programmatic way to tell when you are home (i.e. when you want to use PPPoE) and when you don't.  The easiest way to do that is by figuring out which Wi-Fi network you are on.

  NOTE: I am going to assume that you have setup a new network location called "PPPOE" that you want to use when you are home, as opposed to the generic "Automatic" which will be used elsewhere.

The first part of the script could look like this:

#!/bin/sh

    # Apple provides a utility called 'airport' but it's buried outside of the normal $PATH
    # so you'll have to call it directly (or link it to somewhere in your $PATH using 'ln -s')
    # this is the correct path for Snow Leopard and Lion. I think it had a different path
    # in earlier versions of OS X but I'm not sure
AIRPORT='/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport'

    # get the SSID of the network you are connected to
SSID=`${AIRPORT} -I | awk -F": " '/ SSID:/{print $NF}'`

Then you need to take different actions depending on the SSID, which would look something like this (change 'mySSID' to whatever your home SSID is)

if [ "$SSID" = "mySSID" ]
then
    # Select your 'PPPOE' network location (or whatever you called it)
    scselect PPPOE

else
    # If we are not on that Wi-Fi network, select the default 'Automatic' network location
    scselect Automatic
fi

If you do NOT have a home Wi-Fi network, then you would have to look for the absence of an SSID, which might look like this

if [ "$SSID" = "" ]
then
    # no Wi-Fi network found, let's assume that we are at home
    scselect PPPOE

else
    # if there is a Wi-Fi network, let's use the 'Automatic' network location
    scselect Automatic
fi

exit 0
# (End of script)

Potential pitfalls: when the computer first 'wakes up' it will take a few seconds to connect to a Wi-Fi network, so you may need to add some 'sleep' commands in there to avoid switching locations before all the network information has updated.

"The Ethernet vs Wi-Fi Way"

For the purposes of this discussion, "Ethernet" means "the computer is plugged into a network by a physical cable."

If you only use Ethernet at home, another option is to disable your Ethernet port when not in use (which I assume means that PPPOE will not try to connect, but that may be an incorrect assumption).

I already wrote a script that does that, which you can find here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18414/ase/29227/wired-no-wifi.sh which you could use with launchd.

Note that script assumes that your Ethernet port is en0 and your Wi-Fi port is en1.

launchd note

I assume that you know that your plist for launchd should be stored in ~/Library/LaunchAgents and that after you add a new one you either have to logout/login or use launchctl load like this:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/YourLaunchdFileHere.plist

Seriously though, try Sidekick

All of a sudden $30 looks pretty cheap, doesn't it ;-?

Yeah you can geek out and do this on the command line, but Sidekick can do all this and more, and much more easily. Unless you're extremely poor, cheap, and/or nerdy, I highly recommend that over launchd -- but I still love being able to get "under the hood" and tinker with this sort of thing.


How to prevent iPad from using Personal Hotspot?

On the iPad, in Settings > Wifi, tap the 'i' in a circle icon next to the listing for the Personal Hotspot, then tap the Forget This Network tab.
You should make absolutely sure the Personal Hotspot is turned off. Looking at Settings > Personal Hotspot, it is pretty unambiguous.
You should also check to see if Instant Hotspot has been enabled:

Instant hotspot
You can use Personal Hotspot on your iPhone to provide Internet access to your other devices without additional setup. You'll need to sign in to iCloud using the same Apple ID as your iPhone. Also, your cellular provider needs to provision your Personal Hotspot.
To get Internet access from your iPhone:
On your iPad or iPod touch, go to Settings > Wi-Fi on your other iOS device and select your iPhone or iPad that has a cellular connection.
On your Mac, go to the Wi-Fi menu at the top of your screen and select your iPhone or iPad that has a cellular connection.

From this Apple Support Page


RSS app: How to get approval for App Store?

What Apple are saying is that the content your App would be pulling through is the property of the news / media outlets who produce it. As to not infringe on their copyright, you need to get approval from these news outlets that you can then show Apple to get your app approved.

Getting the news outlets to agree might depend largely on how you pose it to them, you want them to perceive being included in your app as beneficial to them. I don't know how the app is structured but maybe if you pull through teaser content for example and have links through to more content then that's where you can present a benefit to the news outlets. You need to contact someone in upper management in the first instance, someone who has the authority to authorise your use of the content, and maybe pitch it to them as follows:

Hi _________

My name is __________, I'm the head of ________ Software. I'm contacting you because of your role at ____________. My company has recently produced an app that aggregates news stories and provides links through to the media outlets who produced them, we're now looking for strategic relationships we can develop with key content producers to ensure our service always has the best array of content. We don't intend charging news outlets for displaying their content as we plan to monetize the app through other means, which means this service provides free promotion  of your content. I believe that your organisation might be a really good fit for this service and was hoping we could have a phone conversation to discuss the matter further.

Please let me know when would be a good time for me to give you a call and I look forward to telling you more about our application.

Regards,

Hopefully that gets you started...


How can I get iTerm out of fullscreen mode?

This was probably how I got stuck there in the first place.  You can toggle full screen mode with the ⌘ Command⏎ Enter keyboard shortcut.


Export and import data from iPhone after restoring with iTunes (or 3rd party apps)

Interesting... What happens when you plug in your iPhone to the computer? What's the message of iTunes? As far as you can find the iPhone from your iTunes, you can always do the backup by right-click on your iPhone icon in iTunes and select "Backup" to force it to back up.

However there is one thing you should know: based on my experience when upgrading the iOS 5, even I did the force backup as above, after restoring it still not the same as the point when I did the backup. I am not sure whether it really "backups", but at least this is an option.


Is there a way to add a background color in Apple notes?

No, there is currently no way to change the background color in Apple Notes.


Option + Z keystroke does not insert the ohm symbol/omega (Ω)

After changing my Input Source to U.S. (via System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Input Sources), the keystroke works as expected. Now pressing Option + z inserts the Ω character.


is there any way to adjust the brightness of the Apple Cinema Display in 10.11 (El Capitan)?

Just found a simple way to do this that I already had available to me (simple for me, maybe or maybe not for others).  My mac mini is set up as a triple boot (Windows, 10.6, 10.11 [was 10.8 until last night]).  I have some programs that I still use that only work through 10.6 and some others times I need the newer 10.8 (and just got a newer iPhone and it needed a newer version of iTunes to allow backup which is what got me going on changing to 10.11 anyhow).  Anyway, setting the brightness in 10.6 and then rebooting into 10.11 works.  Obviously, not great if you have to quickly make it dimmer, but this solution is the best for me.  I think there is plenty out there on how to make a dual-boot mac setup (the triple boot with windows was a tremendous headache and I would not recommend it, but I did get it to work finally).


How to stop messages from opening when I touch the icon

Silly answer: don't touch it.
Sensible answer: presume you are not wanting to send read receipts until you are ready? If so, note that it should return you to the same view you left it in, so to avoid this have a new conversation to a blank sender and select this conversation before minimising/quitting.


Yesterday I had 6.5GB free; today I have 4.3GB; what happened?

Sadly for you, lots goes on in storage.

Apple has several caching and thinning features that will proactively reclaim space when you run low. Unfortunately, you'll likely need to maintain more like 15 GB of free space if you wish to surf on the wave Apple has set for you.

To solve this, you'll need to be specific about how you are measuring free space and track that over time. You'll get different answers about "how much space" is free depending on which tool does the measuring.

So, if you can afford to relocate 30 GB of files temporarily, do that and see once things stabilize and Apple's cleaned things up. Then you can measure and rejigger things.

If you can't afford that - then you'll need to dive into things and not count on the "automatic transmission" to shift gears. I use Daisy Disk (and What Size in the past) as well as terminal and finder to help in cases like yours.

If you go down that manual management route, see:

MacBook Air: What taking up all my hard drive space
I have deleted a bunch of music from iTunes on my Macbook Pro, but am not gaining any free space
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/136539/
Disk space disappears to 0, then after a while I have free space


Downloaded app on iPad, now I cannot download it on iPhone

You might be having this error because the app is already installed. If you have automatic downloads turned "on" for the App Store on your iPhone, iCloud will push the app to your phone if you buy it on another device.


This sounds like a bug; you can report it at bugreporter.apple.com with an Apple ID and password.

Can you reproduce the problem, then check for new error messages in /Applications/Utilities/Console.app? There's a small chance that this will indicate the source of the problem.


Difference between charging icons - does it mean anything?

Empty battery icon with lightning bolt means the device is plugged-in and using power but the battery is not charging.  Your Mac is using power directly from the cord.

Full battery icon with lightning bolt means the device is plugged-in and the battery is charging.  Your Mac can use power from both the cord and battery.


After using AirDrop to get a photo from iPhone to Macbook, the file format is HEIC and can I choose "one of" the sequences of photos?

No, you can't do that in Preview.

To make edits to a Live Photo, or to even view the 'live' part of the photo, you need to use a different application.  On the Mac, you can use Photos to view and edit live photos.


launchd: ask user before performing tasks

Make launchd call this AppleScript. It displays a dialog with a timeout and calls a shell script if the user selected "Ok".

set timeoutInSeconds to 60
set abortOnTimeout to true

tell application (path to frontmost application as text)
    try
        set dialogResult to display dialog "Do you want to execute?" default button 2 giving up after timeoutInSeconds
        on error number -128
            return
    end try
end tell

if gave up of dialogResult and abortOnTimeout then
    return
end if

do shell script "/path/to/yourscript.sh"


Can you set a specific WiFi channel with an iOS/iPhone personal hotspot?

No - the OS picks channels algorithmically so you get what iOS chooses each time you enable personal hot spot.  I've seen personal hotspot pick channels 1, 6 and 11 on iOS 7 when in moderately busy wireless environments like this one with 26 advertising base stations (and a few hidden ones as well).


How can I save multiple pics in iMessages to Camera Roll?

Launch the Messages app.
Tap on the text thread that has the pictures and/or videos.
Tap on Details in the top right corner.
Scroll down to the Attachments section and press and hold on one of
the pictures or videos you'd like to save.
Tap on More in the popup menu.
Tap to select all the photos you'd like to save.
Tap on Save Images in the bottom left corner to save them to the
Photos app.

Source


BBEdit Code Completion and other features found in Textmate

According to the 12.6 user manual (p104), BBEdit offers code completion based on:

  clippings (both language-specific and universal);
  ctags symbols computed by running the current document through 'ctags';
  ctags symbols found in 'tags' files in the current document's hierarchy;
  predefined names for the source code language at the point of completion;
  language-specific completions (both predefined and derived from the current document’s content);
  dictionary words provided by the system spelling service

By default this completion is triggered by F5 but "You can change this equivalent via the Menus & Shortcuts preference panel."

(And, yes, Kite support was deactivated in version 12.1.5.)


There is no login.keychain file in my High Sierra.Cant build titanium

You have the wrong path for the login.keychain file.

You need to look in ~/Library/Keychains/ which means that your Titanium command becomes:

appc ti build -K ${HOME}/Library/Keychains/login.keychain


iCloud won't allow me to mark some mail as "Not Junk"

Found a real solution!  If I save the sender of any of these "problem" emails to my address book within iCloud, then they are automatically not marked as Junk any longer.  Hooray!

Simply open the mail, click on the address of the sender, and click Save.  Problem solved once and for all!


Reinstalling OS X 10.6 without losing any data

I would strongly recommend against starting any recovery/reinstallation attempt without having a valid (and verified) backup available on another disk. As you are still able to boot the system with the Install DVD you can

use Disk Utility on the Install DVD to create a full backup copy of your internal disk to an external one
copy /Applications and /Users to an external drive (which should cover "all" critical data)

Then just proceed with an reinstallation attempt.


System time growing an accumulating latency

In System Preferences > Date & Time, you should be able to use a Time Server by checking a checkbox and specifying a time server:

Depending on where you live on the globe, the available time servers may be different.


Possible to pause audio in browser using keyboard?

I can't find a way to do it in Chrome, but in Safari it's easy.

Method as follows, in case it would provide a suitable alternative...

You can click on the speaker icon to the right of the address bar to mute either the current tab or all tabs - the Mute wording appears as you hover your cursor.
A single click will mute even if Safari is not currently frontmost, so long as you can see the icon. [It will then bring it to the front, though.]

You can also set a key command to Mute This Tab or Mute All Tabs in System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts >App Shortcuts - though this requires Safari to be frontmost to work.


I'd say it is very unlikely, but if you want to you can do a factory reset which will wipe the device settings, and also download and install the latest system software for your device.

Apple TV (2nd and 3rd generation): Restoring your Apple TV


Remotely access hard disk of my Time Capsule being used a primary router

I have maybe a similar problem. Until recently I was with the AEBS 5th gen and accessed from anywhere in the world to the disk that was hooked up. I changed the router with the 6th gen I made the same settings but nothing, I have no access to the disk, tried with another AEBS and again nothing, tried with TC last generation, but still nothing, I can't connect to the router remotely, what did I do, what I didn't change anything either. When I returned for test AEBS 5th gen everything worked perfectly. If anyone has such a problem it would be good to share.


It's been moved to homebrew/science but it seems there is a a conflict with the main homebrew listing for it.

The workaround if you're just trying to install octave is to edit the octave recipe and explicitly point it at homebrew/science/hdf5 for the dependency.

In the command line type

brew edit octave

Find the line:

"depends_on "hdf5" => :recommended"

and change it to:

"depends_on "homebrew/science/hdf5" => :recommended"

Save your changes and brew install octave again


Newbie question on getting back hard drive space

Disk Inventory X or WhatSize are both excellent apps for giving you a complete list of what's taking up space.  Also, as you described there is a way to start at the root and check the size of each folder, drilling down until you find the culprit.  Command-I or Get-Info from the the right click menu will show you the size of any folder or file you select.


Need a cli to check the sha256 hash of a file

You can use

openssl dgst -sha256 <file>

Tested on LibreSSL 2.6.4 on macOS 10.14 (Mojave).

Prior to Mojave you can use openssl sha -sha256 <file> or openssl sha256 <file>.

To check command line options for the openssl sha command: openssl sha -help.


Why not make an new shared apple id that you can all use specifically for home sharing.
Then you get to tap "more" then "sharing" in the iOS music app.


Cursor changes position in input line after I highlight some text to overwrite it

The most likely culprit once you rule out Bluetooth mouse / trackpad and any wrist or liquid input is hardware.

If you can reproduce this on a clean os install onto an external drive (to avoid wiping your normal drive and files and apps) it could be:

failing battery pressing underneath the trackpad
failing or damaged capacitive sensing grid
failing chip that processes the capacitive touch sensor

It's unlikely to be software, but I'd still download and install a clean and updated os to be sure unless you have close and easy access to hardware service.


Moving terminal version of python to homebrew version

Check if /usr/local/bin is in your PATH and that it's before /usr/bin. In the terminal:

echo $PATH

I believe brew doctor will warn you about this if it's not. Basically, if it's not, the system will look in /usr/bin first instead of /usr/local/bin, which is where homebrew links everything.

For bash, you just need to add:

export PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH

to your ~/.bash_profile file.


Is there a way to view iTunes Store purchase history on a regular internet browser?

no you can't but you can you report a problem to list your purchases

https://reportaproblem.apple.com


homebrew PostgreSQL upgraded to 10.1 but I need 9.6

Had the same problem and found this from https://jaketrent.com/post/downgrade-previously-installed-brew-formula/

brew install postgres@9.6
brew switch postgres 9.6.3
brew info postgres // prints summary that should show no conflicts
brew services start postgresql // if desired, of course.


Google found a couple of possibilities; I haven't tried them myself:

NextWindow - Touchscreen 2700
Planar Touch - Touchscreen LCD Monitor - PT1710mx 17" Monitor

There's the Wacom Cintiq; while I believe they need drivers I'm sure they'd be available close to day & date.

And an entirely different approach to take might be the Axiotron Modbook.


Can not edit or add a user account on Mavericks Server App

Follow the directions posted at: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT200018

In summary:
1. Check that your DNS settings are correct using terminal host and hostname commands
2. Rekerberize your server - the steps basically reinitialize slapd and the chain of trust needed for network account operation


In a WhatsApp videochat on my iPhone (XR, iOS 12.4), how can I switch between front and back cameras?

There's a camera flip button in the bottom, beside the end call button. See the snapshot in the video in FAQ https://faq.whatsapp.com/en/iphone/26000028/?category=5245237


Movies button missing in Purchased items in iTunes

You're probably in an iTunes-restricted country. While any user may re-download apps and books, re-downloads of music and movies are restricted to certain countries.

You'll need to manually copy the movies over to the XP computer. Note that you will need to activate iTunes with your AppleID to be able to play them.


Can a MacBook Air use another computer's optical drive when running Windows on Boot Camp?

Not as seamless as OS X, but you just share the optical drive via Windows File Sharing (SMB).


AFAIK Migration Assistant will let you do just what you've asked. Here is an article on this but it's pretty straightforward.


Is it a bad idea to purchase older Apple routers?

I bought a second hand Airport Extreme (A1354) about a year ago for less than 50% of the price of a new one so my suggestion would be to do some good shopping around as they come up from time to time.

When I was looking for one, the minimum I was considering was the 3rd Generation (A1301) as it supported Dual Band. I would not personally buy anything older than this.

The model you are looking at supports Single 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz which means you can run either in 2.4 or 5 GHz mode, not both together. 2.4 GHz is the most commonly used wifi protocol (b/g/n) and means that the 13 channels available are very busy. 5 GHz (also n) is newer and less busy but not all devices support it. You don't mention which models of the iPhone, iPad, Macs etc you have but be aware that only the more recent devices support 5 GHz (iPhone 5 does). The newer devices support running both at once and communication is seamless between the devices.

The 4th generation (my model) also support the final version of N so I connect at up to 450 mbps which is great for transferring files. My Apple TV (3rd Gen) works great in a wireless configuration - mainly streaming data from my iMac (2011 - wireless) or Mac Pro (2008 - wired).

Apple has also spent a lot of time improving the antenna strength in the later models which really helps if you have a house with thick walls.

You can see a nice breakdown of what features are support by which model on Wikipedia. If you look further up the article there is a summary of what the improvements were in each model.

I received an update for my model within the last month, not bad for a product first produced in 2009 (I can't comment on older models as I don't have any).


Truncated “Recent Items” Label in OS X Mavericks General Preferences

I had the same problem, and figured out the solution.

Apparently, for whatever reason, 3rd party hacks or something else, the font size in the preference pane was incorrect. Since there's no way to change the size of System Fonts in the GUI, I used the TinkerTool utility to reset to defaults.

It was the fixed-pitch font that was incorrect, and TinkerTool had it highlighted. I just hit the Set to default button in TinkerTool's Fonts tab and that fixed it.

I'm glad I sorted this out and didn't have to re-download the 5+ GB Mavericks Installer!


iTunes share Library not Loading Correctly

To solve this problem & set the artist of all shows to the name of the TV show & set all episode IDs in the form of S#E# (season number & episode number)

PS. when setting the episode ID of the first 9 episode write the as "05" not just "5" else they will not be sorted correctly.


Current answer is wrong because Apple does not allow you to override the default. Still the answer is good for saving another preset.

Once you saved and selected that preset jus tbe sure that you keep Option/Alt key while pressint the print button, this will make MacOS remember your preset for the next usage --- mainly switcing the default to your current profile.


I don't know if you would call it "similar" to PowerPoint as PowerPoint isn't focused on MarkDown or code, but a nice Mac app is "Deckset" 1.

Another option is to use the browser-based Remark 2. However it is not a native Mac app as such.


Time Machine deleting backups from several months ago (but not the oldest)?

According to Apple, Time Machine keeps backups

hourly for the current 24 hours
daily for the last month
weekly copy until the disk is full

You may be noticing the system deleting "extraneous days", pruning the weeks' worth of daily backups down to the weekly copy.

As long as you can still view the weekly copies in Time Machine, they are still there.


Missing operating system can’t install new Os

Actually this is pretty easy, if you have a network connection of some sort. Wired ethernet is generally more reliable and faster, but you need the cable and possibly an ethernet adapter, depending on the model of MacBook you have.

Boot your Mac while holding the ⌘ Command and R keys. In a minute or two you will get to the macOS recovery screen which will allow you to log into WiFi (if you are not already using ethernet) and reinstall macOS.

The system will query Apple's servers over the internet and download the latest version your Mac supports. Depending on how fast your network connection is, this could take quite a while.

It will prompt you to reboot when the installation is complete. And you will have macOS installed on your Mac.

Apple has the official details here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314


StartupSound works for me. It's true that it is sometimes not totally OK, but if you set different sounds volume, or check-unchech the mute radio button, finally it does the job.


How can I correct a wrong 'Personal Profile' address when enrolling in Apple Developer Program?

I fixed it. Don't know why, but I know how.

During the enrollment process, I had logged into My Apple ID to fix my address (only to find out that it was already correct there). Then, I opened up iTunes then went to the menu item Store > View Account. Once again, my address was correct there too, so I exited out of there.

From there, I decided to cancel the Developer Program enrollment, to which the Apple site replied that it had saved my enrollment-in-progress. I started the enrollment over again (though it had much of my previous information retained).

At that point, it had corrected the address by itself.

In short: log in to My Apple ID, then View Account on iTunes, cancel enrollment then restart enrollment. Fixed (for me, at least).


A dollar sign before a single-quoted string is just another type of string, but it allows C-like escape characters, like \n and \'.

It was used in the command you mentioned because it contains an escape for the single quote—normal single quoted strings do not allow any escapes at all, including escapes of the '. Backslashes are interpreted literally. So by using $'…' it avoided escaping the double quotes, and allowed the string to have a ' in it.

There is some more information on this type of string quoting here on the Bash Hackers Wiki.


After an afternoon of tinkering, a semi-solution.

I found I can fix the automatic launching of the screen saver when closing a screen share by shutting down and restarting the screen sharing service by issuing these commands in a terminal window:

  sudo launchctl unload
  /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.screensharing.plist

  sudo launchctl load -w
  /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.screensharing.plist

(See Restart Screen Sharing Service on Mac mini Server for more details)

This can be accomplished remotely by via SSH as well.

Another observation, the automatic launching of the screen saver only seems to "stick" once I open a screen share while a screen saver is running.  It's almost as if the machine "remembers" if you logged on while a screen saver is running and "decides" to start it back up when you logout... forever.
From then on the screen saver will launch every time you close a screen share session (until you restart the machine, or the service)

I hope this helps with watching Netflix. Sadly it doesn't help me much since I often launch a pretty screen saver on the TV just for aesthetics.  After that to go back to 'normal' I have relaunch the sharing service, which is highly annoying.  Here's hoping someone has a better solution...

Old answer:

Not an answer, but acknowledgement that someone else is having the same problem and some more specifics.  Hopefully someone can help.

Same setup:  TV connected to my Mac via HDMI.  I use screen sharing to control it.
More Info:

1- The screen saver only launches when the last screen sharing client closes. (For example, if I'm using screen share on a laptop and iTeleport on my phone, if I close one or the other, the screen saver doesn't start up.  The screen saver will only start when the very last client disconnects.)

2- The screen saver launches even if the mouse is placed in a 'hot corner' set to 'Disable Screensaver'

3- If I reboot the machine, or disable and then re-enable screen sharing (using my connect mouse/keyboard) the problem goes away, until I run a screen saver once.  From that point on it will "auto-launch" the screen saver, until I reboot or disable/re-enable sharing.

4- I agree w/ OP that this problem must have come through an update or something because I have not noticed this behavior until just a few days ago after several years of using my mac mini with a TV connected as a monitor via HDMI.


Without using the mouse, how do I trigger 'Print' in Gmail (using Google Chrome on the Mac)?

Here is one way that I triggered the Print sheet in Gmail within Google Chrome using a keyboard shortcut:

Doing this on macOS High Sierra1, in Automator, create a new Service.1

Set Service receives1 no input in Google Chrome

Add a Run AppleScript action, replacing the default code with the following example AppleScript code:

tell application "Google Chrome" to execute front window's active tab ¬
    javascript "document.getElementsByClassName('T-I J-J5-Ji T-I-JN L3')[2].click();"

Save the Service as, e.g.: Google Chrome Gmail Print

1 In macOS Mojave, and later, an Automator Service is called a Quick Action. There are also other minor nomenclature differences but they should be more obvious when comparing them to pre-macOS Mojave Automator workflows.

Assign the Service a keyboard shortcut in: System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Services

I assigned ⌃⌘P to the e.g. Google Chrome Gmail Print Service.

Now in Gmail, within Google Chrome, having an email opened showing the print icon, as shown circled in red in the first image below, and I press ⌃⌘P the Gmail Print sheet, as shown in the second image below, is revealed.

Note that in the standard view, as shown in the Gmail image above, there are four ElementsByClassName with T-I J-J5-Ji T-I-JN L3 as the class name. Index [0] and [1] are used by the Collapse all icon or Expand all icon that will show, when applicable, to the left of the Print all icon [2] and index [3] is used for the In new window icon to the right of the Print all icon.

 Note: The example AppleScript code is just that and does not contain any error handling as may be appropriate. The onus is upon the user to add any error handling as may be appropriate, needed or wanted. Have a look at the try statement and error statement in the AppleScript Language Guide. See also, Working with Errors.


sharing internet/vpn with ipfw, can't access google.com over https

Selecting "Clamp MSS" in the Murus Static NAT options allows access to https://google.com (and apple.stackexchange.com)!.  There are still issues (can't speed test at fast.com and others) but this does provide the fix.


No, this isn't a virus1.

It seems that your name and email address are not set up properly in Git. Go to Xcode Preferences and then Accounts, select the repository, and check the username.

You can also do this via the command line:

git config --global user.email "you@example.com"
git config --global user.name "Your Name"

1: The message content can be found in /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/libexec/git-core/git (git version 2.7.4 (Apple Git-66) lines 11416-11424).


How can I change the default delay time before automatic shutdown?

There are a couple of workarounds for this, one of which I discovered by accident some time ago - though it doesn't give you 10 seconds, it's almost instantaneous.

If you set a shortcut key for "Shut Down…" the Apple Menu will add another option, "Shut Down" [without the ellipsis]. This one doesn't present that dialog at all, it just shuts down.

The same applies to Restart…

You can achieve the same by holding  Opt ⌥  whilst the Apple menu is open. All the options that would normally present an "Are You Sure?" dialog will be actioned without it - you see the ellipsis disappear with  Opt ⌥  held.


How can I tell whether an iOS game/app saves its data to iCloud?

You can see a list of apps using iCloud storage from the Settings → iCloud → Storage → Manage Storage menu. But even if your app is listed, there's no way of checking exactly what data is saved.


Are Trådfri motion detectors, dimmers, and switch compatible with HomeKit?

To see what's currently compatible with HomeKit have a look at HomeKit accessories.
The list keeps getting smarter,, at Apple's website.

At the present time, nothing from Ikea is compatible and will not be until later this year in the fall, starting with Ikea's Trådfri line of smart lighting. Explicit compatibility of any other Ikea products has yet to be announced.