How can I send the currently active window to the back?

Short answer: No, Apple does not provide an API that allows you to alter an application window index except by bringing a window to the front (index 1). There are no elegant solutions. But:

Long answer: Yes, You can use AppleScript to effectively move a window to the back of a stack of AppleScript-able windows by collecting a list of windows, then rapidly moving each one (except the frontmost) to the front, leaving the chosen window at the back.

Here is an example of an AppleScript which sends the frontmost Finder Window to the back.

tell application "Finder"
    set winList to every window whose visible is true
    if not winList = {} then
        repeat with oWin in (items 1 through -2 of reverse of winList)
            set index of oWin to 1
        end repeat
    end if
end tell

This script is based on a solution by JMichaelTX discussed on the KeyboardMaestro forum.

The reshuffling is incredibly fast, but in the Script Editor you can inspect how it works, leaving "506" on the bottom and popping "502-505" up in a way that preserves their order:

get every window whose visible = true
    --> {Finder window id 506, Finder window id 505, Finder window id 504, Finder window id 503, Finder window id 502}
set index of Finder window id 502 to 1
    --> 1
set index of Finder window id 503 to 1
    --> 1
set index of Finder window id 504 to 1
    --> 1
set index of Finder window id 505 to 1
    --> 1

You can map this AppleScript to a service or keyboard shortcut, either by a) putting the script into a Run AppleScript action inside an Automator service, or b) using a launcher (Alfred, Keyboard Maestro etc.). For details on Applescript keyboard assignment see: How do I assign a keyboard shortcut to an AppleScript I wrote?

This may satisfy OPs needs -- it is unclear from the original post. This solution can also be extended to multiple AppleScript-able applications. I am not, however, aware of a solution to make it work effectively with a mix of scriptable and non-scriptable windows, due to the fact that in AppleScript, System Events addressable windows for non-scriptable applications do not have a set index verb/property. There exists an "AXRaise" action for some windows when assistive devices / accessibility is turned on, but this also does not apply to all windows. Elaborate hacks exist that involve walking through each active application and show/hiding or minimizing/restoring windows, but they are a mess.

Related discussions:

How to set a window's index to last (furthest back) in applescript
Applescript - Bring window to foreground
Is there a way to iterate over all open windows in Mac OS X?


You can use the run handler to pass arguments:

dialog() {
    osascript -e 'on run args
    try
    tell app "SystemUIServer" to display dialog (item 1 of args)
    end
    activate app (path to frontmost application as text)
    end' "$1"
}

If you want to call it like dialog a b (instead of dialog 'a b'), change $1 to $*.

System Events quits automatically when it is not used, and there is a small delay when it is opened, so telling it to display the dialog would sometimes be slower.

Without the try block there would be an error if the user presses a cancel button. Without activate the previously focused window wouldn't get focus back when the dialog is closed.

You can use something like this to display text dialogs:

answer=$(osascript -e 'try
tell app "SystemUIServer"
set answer to text returned of (display dialog "" default answer "")
end
end
activate app (path to frontmost application as text)
answer' | tr '\r' ' ')
[ -z "$answer" ] && exit


How to repair OS X Snow Leopard from USB Stick

You must use disk utility to erase the hard drive -- the settings when you erase should default to macOS Extended Journaled (non-case sensitive) on GPT. Then close Disk Utility and open the installer (while in recovery of course).

Note: all data stored on the HDD will be erased. A full backup is strongly recommended before proceeding with the procedure listed above.


Is it possible to allocate fixed amount of storage to members in an iCloud Family?

You cannot allocate storage from the shared pool. However:
If each member gets their own 50GB but you have a shared payment method specified (do you pay for applications they purchase? if so then you have this turned on) then all the iCloud Storage bills will go straight to you.
My recommendation is to try sharing 200GB first - if you've already tried this (your writing seems to indicate you haven't) or if it immediately fails then you could split it up - but you may be overestimating how much any individual person's storage will grow based on what's available.


If you buy a locked phone, then it will be locked to the carrier it was originally bought for. But I guess you know that already.

I am assuming you are in the US, since you mentioned Sprint.

There are two things you can do:

Buy an iPhone that was already unlocked.
Buy a locked iPhone and use it as a phone in the US, but buy a second phone for use abroad. This can be bought abroad or in the US, but make sure it is not carrier locked. When travelling abroad, you could use the iPhone wherever you have access to WiFi - and you could use the other phone for making phone calls. If this phone is also a cheap smartphone, you could even use it to tether the iPhone to it for WiFi access on the move.

Buying an already-unlocked iPhone is not the cheap option, and I assume this is an issue since you were looking on eBay for a phone. But you could get a low-spec Android phone for very little money if it's a few years old. The key thing is that it would have to be unlocked since you would be using it for phone calls abroad, and possibly data access if you use it as a hotspot.


iTunes 12.5 - Add photo of artist / edit rainbow microphone thumbnail

No, missing artist images do not depend on the source of the music. Even if you bought it from Apple, you may get the ugly microphone images!


Is there an online resource with lots of iOS system icons?

http://graffletopia.com/categories/macintosh
Looks like you'll need to get a demo copy of Omnigraffle to open them. Photoshop won't, and I'm not seeing other Mac standard software that will.  Also (Photoshop format):  http://www.teehanlax.com/downloads/


It's a bit obscure, but iTunes actually offers email notifications for new releases by artists you select. To add an artist to the list, go to the artist's page within iTunes, and click the Alert Me link in the right sidebar, then click Manage My Alerts.

You'll see the artist has been added to the list (it may also contain artists you've previously purchased music from). Check the Send me email alerts about artists I've previously downloaded box to (surprise) get email when they release something. To add more artists, click the Alert Me on their page, then click OK.

If you don't want to use email for this, iTunes offers new release RSS feeds. You could filter these with something like Yahoo Pipes to get a feed with only the artists you're interested in.

It's worth noting that these both display new releases when they come out, not upcoming releases. As far as I can tell, Apple doesn't publish any upcoming release data, except for the pre-orders page, which doesn't seem to contain all upcoming releases, just featured ones.


What is the chatLengthEstimator.cmsketch file located in the Library/Suggestions folder? (Mac OSX)

The files in ~/Library/Suggestions are used internally to support some of macOS's machine learning features, like Spotlight Suggestions, Suggested Contacts, and data detectors. These files are not being suggested to you.

A .cmSketch file probably contains a count-min sketch data structure. It does not contain any human-readable data. Given the name of this file, it is probably used to estimate how often, or for how long, you chat with your contacts on iMessage.


MacBook chargers turns green, then red, and then stops charger

If one charger works, and another doesn’t, the non-working one is most probably broken and needs to be replaced.


Dock Dual Thunderbolt 2 Laptops with dual hdmi out / dual screen sharing?

A dock built to accommodate two hosts will be rare to non-existent.  One reason is few people will want such a thing, and companies build devices for sale that they believe will bring a return on their investment, and another is that how such a dock should behave will be difficult to define, which makes the required investment in building such a dock quite high.
What you are likely going to have to do is build the dock you are looking for from more basic components.  Perhaps a dock for each laptop and a KVM switch to flip the displays between the two computers.
There are software solutions that mimic the function of a hardware KVM, and these may be attractive for you on cost and/or convenience grounds.
Sharing data at high bandwidth will be rather trivial with a Thunderbolt cable between the two.  A quick check of the specs on the two laptops tells me that driving what I assume to be two 4K displays may be too much for either computer to handle on it's own.  To do this might mean driving one display from each laptop or adding an external GPU.  Swapping the eGPU between computers is not likely to be trivial, you may have to pick which computer is driving the screens or have a separate eGPU for each computer.
You may not need a dock, or perhaps not need any additional hardware.  What you need to do is define your goals more clearly and create your two computer system to match.
Here's one idea.  The MacBook Pro can be "permanently docked" and have the two displays connected.  The Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and any other user input devices, also connected to the MacBook Pro.  When you need to add in the MacBook Air then it would be connected to the MacBook Pro by a Thunderbolt cable.  The Thunderbolt cable will provide a high bandwidth network between the two computers.  Using a screen sharing program between the two computers you will be able to control the MacBook Air from the MacBook Pro.
How the screen sharing (effectively a virtual/software KVM switch) works with the MacBook Air will depend on the specific software used and it's intended behavior.  To have the MacBook Air "see" the two screens on the MacBook Pro will likely require "dummy displays" to work.  These "dummy displays" are video port dongles that will hang off the MacBook Air which will look like an attached display to the computer but have no real screen.
Sharing two high resolution screens will take a lot of bandwidth, even by Thunderbolt standards.  Sharing data over this same network connection will take even more bandwidth.  Spreading this out by using WiFi or some other networking connection will help in resolving what I anticipate to be a bandwidth bottleneck.  Using a hardware KVM instead of a software KVM will mean not relying on a network to move the data for two 4K screens but dual 4K display KVM switches will not be cheap.
Buying the docks, KVM switches (hardware or software), and cables to make this work might end up being a considerable investment.  So much of an investment that it may make more sense to just buy a new computer to replace the two you have.


Replaced SSD drive on MBPr shown as External

Yes, having had the same issue myself you need to erase and setup the drive again from scratch. It comes from the factory setup as you describe for whatever reason.
After backing up all your data (or if you already have a good backup or don't need one), follow these instructions:

Power off your Mac. Power on then immediately hold the Left Command, Option and R keys

This will Boot to Internet Recovery Mode on your Mac.

Once booted, go to Utilities, Terminal.

Inside Terminal type the following:

diskutil unmountdisk disk0

gpt destroy /dev/disk0

Close Terminal.

Open Disk Utility.

Click your OWC Aura drive on the left side, then choose the Erase Button.
Once erased, close disk utility and then choose Reinstall OS X and choose the newly reformatted volume.

You should note it appears as a regular internal drive now.


OS X El Capitan and older not available on App Store?

I am downloading it now from the App Store and it seems to be working fine.  I did not go through the App Store, but used the following link:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206886

After going to the link there is a section on how to get El Capitan from the App Store if you do not meet the system requirements for MacOS Sierra.  Click on that link (pasted below) and it will open the App Store to the El Capitan App download section.  Simply click on 'Get' and it will start downloading.

https://itunes.apple.com/app/os-x-el-capitan/id1147835434?mt=12


this seems like a software issue. Once you are booted into macOS, try reinstalling Windows support software from Apple via BootCamp. Once it is downloaded, install it to your Windows partition. Check this out for installation help: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204923

The problem with doing a manual install Is that it doesn't always install necessary drivers.

If the problem continues, then try doing a power on self-test. To do this, reboot the Mac and hold "D" while it is starting up.

Good luck!


Booted to Windows how do I enable access to a Mac CoreStorage volume?

Instead of a default/classical Mac volume like your iMac, your MacBook Pro contains a CoreStorage volume.

Booted to Windows, CoreStorage volumes cannot be mounted and consequently the contained files can't be read - until now.

You would need to revert the CoreStorage volume wrapper that contains HFS+ back to a straight HFS+ volume to regain read-only access.

I'm surprised Apple doesn't have KB article on this, but look here:

Why I can not see mac partition under windows installed with bootcamp?
Can't make more than two partitions

Basically, boot to Recovery HD (or another external Mac volume) and then issue the command:

diskutil cs revert E21EC611-3794-4B0D-BFDB-299510FCDFAB

That would take partition 2 on disk0 (the Core Storage part) and revert it to the HFS+ or classic disk layout that Windows knows how to read.


How to remove folder/account from list of messages (OS X 10.1 Mail)

This is an important feature because it creates a quick visual tool to let you know what Inbox it's located in without actually opening the message or right clicking on your To: address. When using universal inbox like this, it's important, however the subject line isn't truncated because of this, the subject line gets truncated based of the width of your Sort Column or 'Messages' Column. In fact, even the inbox account name gets truncated when the column width is less than stellar. Simply enlarge the column width to an appropriate size that makes you happy. Otherwise, the only option you could do is turn off the contact photos which will give you an extra 100 pixels or so of space. You can find that setting in Preferences > Viewing > Show contact Photos in the message list

To answer the question specifically though, it's truncated because of the column width, alter the size and it will no longer be truncated.


Restored system now some apps won't start

If these were 3rd party apps I'd say that you need to reinstall them but they aren't so it's a bit... odder...

It may be that the Time Machine restore put back files that were created with a later version of the app that the older version understands. I would start with deleting the preferences files for those apps in ~/Library/Preferences. Look for files that start with "com.apple" and end with the app name. You could also check in /Library/Preferences. Delete the preference file(s) and try the app again.

Apps like Calendar have a file that they automatically open. you may have to just delete the primary calendar 'document' which (I believe) have their own folder in which they reside: ~/Library.

Finally clear the caches folders Delete the contents of /Library/Caches and ~/Library/Caches and reboot.

At least that is my best guess.


My mac boots to a grey screen - target disk mode works

Boot to Single User Mode (Cmd S) let it do it's thing and then type:
cd /var/log
(press enter)
grep disk0 *
(press enter).

Towards the end of the outputted logs if you se IO Error your hard drive or flex cable are going.

If you can boot in safe mode (holding down shift at start up) maybe you have a dodgy 3rd party kernel extension.


EHHHH was connected to my Mac with the video stream launched in QuickTime (my iPhone was the input).

9:41 is the "famous" time displayed during the keynotes :)

Quitting the video stream solves the problem.


Google Mail doesn't download label as folder

You can disable these from your Gmail Preferences.

Go to Settings > Labels, and uncheck all the labels you don't wish to appear on your iPhone.  Once done, the iPhone should update accordingly.  If not, just delete the account and add it again.

For example, here are my settings:


MacBook Pro 13" 2016 - How to set up dual monitors?

If you want a single cable solution, have a look at the CalDigit Thunderbolt Station.

You will need to go from DisplayPort to HDMI and then Thunderbolt/USBC to HDMI (another adapter), but you will be able to connect two HDMI monitors ultimately from one (Thunderbolt) USB-C cable from your Mac.

Now, if your Samsung monitor supports Display Port, I would use that interface instead of going to HDMI.  So, I would use a Display Port to Display Port cable and a USB-C to Display Port adapter (instead of HDMI).

There's a really good review of it on YouTube


Organization Name does not match Organization ID when privately distributing an app

I just found the solution for me - I was using Chrome, tried everything (I was pulling apart network requests and everything).

Switching to Safari solved the issue.


Why does it take so long to boot and shut down my MacBook Air?

I agree with JWB's comment, more info on your computer and system would be helpful.

The "standard" Apple fix (when you call AppleCare) usually involves making a new user which is a useful thing to know how to do. Doing this will help you sort out where the problem is, at the system level or at the user level.

Go to the Apple menu and choose "System Preferences."

Click on "Users and Groups.

Unlock the screen to make changes (you'll need to type in your user password)

Before doing the next step click on your user name (current user) and then click the Login items tab to the right. Are there things loading on login that you don't recognize or you think might be causing the problem? If yes make note of what they are. For example, on my computer I have only two things that load on login: Fantastical and Alfred.

Hit the + (plus) under the list of users to make a new user.

Create a new standard user (make the user name and password easy). You can choose login options and set Automatic login to the new user if you want to test complete boot up speed but this isn't really necessary.

Close System Preferences.

Log out of your current user.

Log into the new user.

Shut down the computer.

Was it faster? How about on restart into the new user. Faster?

If starting up from the new user sped things up there's something loading or running at the level of your user account that's causing the problem.


You can install install iTunes 12.6.3 on top of / over iTunes 12.7 for all OS that support iTunes 12.7 and both are compatible with iOS 11.

Apple KB: Deploy apps in a business environment with iTunes

You need the direct link, it apparently does not appear as an update.
Mac link.
Windows 32 bit link.
Windows 64-bit Link.

If you've already been using 12.7 you may have luck importing your 12.7 lib  to a clean 12.6.3 Library, as outlined on MacRumors, but I had no joy.

I ended up restoring a backup of my Library [just the catalog not all the tunes] from a time before i updated to 12.7.


Is it possible to use a serial terminal (e.g. VT420) with a modern Mac?

I have not tried this, personally, but there are good instructions for doing so with a Tripp Lite (née Keyspan) USB-to-Serial adapter and an Apple IIc. Obviously, you can ignore the Apple II-specific parts of the instructions (the majority of the article) and focus on the adapter, the cable, and getting ttys to run getty.


Have you tried Carbon Copy Cloner (http://www.bombich.com)? it has a sync feature that may help you.


Where are Core Storage instructions stored?

Without a recovery partition you can't enable FileVault 2:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204837

  "Without a Recovery System, FileVault won't encrypt your startup drive."

I'll bet CoreStorage volumes will work, just probably not encrypted ones.


Create a shortcut/widget to an Accessibility feature

If you go into General -> Accessibility -> Accessibility Shortcut, is there an option to add 'Stream to left hearing device'?

If so, you can then triple click on the home button and that should (providing you haven't enabled any other accessibility features) toggle the stream.

Unfortunately I do not have a MFI device to test this with, however I do use the accessibility shortcuts frequently.


You only have a couple of options here:

System Preferences → Mouse → Point & Click → Smart zoom. That lets you make zoom on the open window when you double-tap with one finger.
Or, System Preferences → Trackpad → Scroll & Zoom → Smart zoom. Is the same as previously mentioned, but you have to double-tap with two fingers on your trackpad.

Both aren't exactly what you mention, but you have no other choices from now on Yosemite.


Can you use any application whilst it is being updated

Under System Preferences / Software Update you can choose Automatically check for updates which will enable the Download newly available updates in the background option.

This is quite self-explanatory. It will just download the update, letting you use the application while the download is active, and when the download is complete, you'll be prompted, through Notification Center, to Install the update.


Incoming emails going to trash (no rules set)

As mentioned in a comment by @negacao another way to view mailbox rules is to use the webapp:
Webapp -> Gear Icon -> Options -> Organize Mail -> Inbox Rules

There was, in fact, a rule set there which I had completely forgotten about. Disabling the rule allows messages to come to the inbox from the SMTP server, which indicates this was the root of the problem.
This same rule is not visible anywhere within Mail.app, for some reason.
The moral of the story for me is, "when in doubt, check the webapp".


Search inputs are synced accross applications, how to disable?

Search input uses the same 'hidden' copy buffer that unix uses in Terminal, called the 'kill ring'. The 'kill' command has a second part, called 'yank'

These are used on text editors/terminals/emacs etc using  Ctrl ⌃   K  &  Ctrl ⌃   Y

In effect they are copy & paste, they just save to a different buffer than the regular. As far as I'm aware you cannot disable them, only replace the content with the next 'kill', the same as the regular  Cmd ⌘   C  &  Cmd ⌘   V  copy/paste.

How to Geek has a good explanation of how to use it, though not hot to disable it.
How to Use macOS’ Built-In “Kill and Yank” as an Alternative Cut and Paste


How do I make a bootable USB out of .bin file

It is not in general possible to create a bootable USB from any ".bin" file.
As per your comments you are not willing to detail how you arrived at the ".bin" file, how it was created, what it contains, or anything like that - we can then conclude that it is not possible for you to create a bootable USB from this ".bin" file.
UPDATE: You have since updated your comments with the source of your ".bin" file being from a specific blog-tutorial on making a simple operating system. In this case your operating system is 32-bit, where Macs today commonly boot 64-bit software. Your operating system also relies on the BIOS to actually do something, but this is not the way modern computers work.
I would suggest to you to keep using qemu or similar to boot your operating system in. Alternatively, buy an old, simple PC that you can tinker with. This will give you fewest headaches.
Alternatively, you need to ensure that the Mac enables the legacy BIOS CSM (compatibility support module) while booting. This can be done by ensure your disk has one of the old MBR partition tables (i.e. not GPT) and that your partition is set as bootable. You operating system then needs to moved into that partition accordingly.
Depending on how old your Mac is, you probably want to go along the road of loading rEFIt in first, and install the old legaby-BIOS version of GRUB 2 as a boot chain to ultimately boot your OS.
If you have the newest M1 Mac, you operating system cannot work at all due to it being 32-bit Intel only. If you have a newer Mac with T2, you'll need to relax secure boot restrictions in order to get going.


What does Software Update in Settings show you? If it is iOS 9 then I'm afraid you can not upgrade to 8 via this route.

You cannot download iOS 8 unless Apple decides to start signing it again.


iPhone Jailbreak Experts - Accessing the email storage?

Unfortunately, emails are not backed up by iTunes/iCloud, so you'll need to go deep into the filesystem (you need to be jailbroken).

Assuming you are, then these are the steps you need to follow:

1) SSH into var/root/library/Mail
2) The mail database is contained inside a file called EnvelopeData. There is no .sqlite extension, but it is an SQLite database
3) Open the SQLite database using a program like MesaSQLite
4) Extract

I haven't personally tested this, but it should work.


Download El Capitan Outside of App Store

Here is a link to download the latest updates manually from Apple.

Here is a torrent file to download InstallESD.dmg, getting speeds of 1mbps+. OS X is free and open to public so this isn't illegal.

This file's SHA1 Checksum is 306a080c07e293b6765ba950bab213572704acec. Here is a list of official Apple checksums. So this is official and not been tampered with.

If you are a developer, or know one that will give you his credentials, you can download it from https://developer.apple.com/download


Finder is very slow in showing the content of server shared folders

In finder make sure you have status bar showing under view options.  You should see a spinning gif animation while the folder is loading.  If you have visited the folder recently the file list should be cached.


Open a terminal and run this command:

 sudo fs_usage

It will dump the filesystem activity in real time. Once you're ready to stop the trace, close the window or press Control-C. If you're not familiar with sudo or fs_usage, right click on them before you press return and open the manual pages for each command to see what they do.

It's almost certainly fine, but without seeing the scale of the graph, it's hard to know for sure. Your Mac can take several days to optimize the files needed in the fast portion of the drive and finish indexing things (if you dump a lot of data on the drive and spotlight can't index it as it's written).


That is a very generic question to ask in this community. Please try following this tutorial http://osxdaily.com/2014/08/01/change-apple-id-ios/ to sign out of your husband's iCloud account completely (i.e. iCloud, iTunes etc), and be sure to sign in with your own.

If you remove his login information by logging him out and using your credentials instead, there shouldn't be any reason why the problem should persist.

Good Luck, let me know how you get on.


How to prevent Safari Technology Preview opening default Safari on launch?

I believe this is something to do with 1Password. It's been reported on their forums and replicated by the support team.


How to show bluetooth headphone battery in macos?

You can write your custom script on these lines
https://romig.dev/blog/mac-os-quirks-bluetooth-device-battery-low/  using ioreg I/O Registry, code for a implementation is available here on Github https://github.com/aromig/scripts/tree/master/check_battery
You can also use plugins like Akku https://github.com/jariz/Akku


Managed to find the problem.

Remove the previous installation and then:

--with-mysqli : I used the native MySql driver ( omitted the folder path )

So when you forget to add a module to your initial compilation and you are stuck with some kind a freaky error delete the old instance that successfully installed and do the ./configure ; make clean ; make ; make install just to be sure:)

Thanks goes to David Parker for helping me with the problem.

Thanks David.


Try

launchctl unload -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.nero.HSMMonitor.plist


exe file not found with which after setting the Path

The PATH is a list of directories so need to add

/Users/neurolab/Desktop/Stephan/Programmes/MSM_old

to your PATH (and re-read ~/.zprofile) to make it work.


Services submenu disappeared from contextual menu of right click

Later it was accompanied with the Spinning Beach Ball of Death. After uninstalling Adobe Creative Cloud it does resolved all problems.


maybe look into airfoil and its iOS companion app?


Is it possible to to do add a brand new SSD to a MacBook Pro and just fresh install Lion?

Yes. Hold the ⌥ key while booting up to select your install USB.

Also note that if you upgrade to the most recent version of Lion you should get the recovery partition to boot up without having to use the USB (internet connection required).


Can I upgrade to an SSD with the newest macOS from an old HDD with old macOS on MacBook Pro 2012?

Broadly speaking, any volume with MacOS on it should boot on any Mac that the OS supports.
There are some exceptions to that rule, of course. The newer T2-chip Macs complicate things with their SecureBoot settings. And some Macs require firmware updates on their internal drive before they can use APFS volumes -- though in your case the EFI partition will be created when you install the OS.
So it should work.
The better alternative would be to create an 'installer disk' on a small USB thumb drive, and boot to that, on the 2012 MBP, to install on the SSD once fitted internally.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201372


Can iOS 11.0.3 automatically logout from WhatsApp?

No, iOS can't delete your WhatsApp account.  iOS can't, on its own, delete any account for any app.

You stated you didn't have Offload Unused App enabled so it's more probable that WhatsApp didn't have the available space it needed to store your history.

iOS will determine if it needs to 'unload' an app from memory to make space for system process, another app's use, etc.  I can't say for sure but it appears that WhatsApp was removed from memory because the system needed to reclaim that memory to use for something else.

If you delete apps you don't need, turn on Offload Unused Apps, and then reinstall WhatsApp, you might see your history return.  This answer from a similar question might help, too.  That user stopped all apps using the app switcher and then restarted their iPhone.  That helped them regain space and add their apps back.


Mail.app signature preferences too big for screen

Well, I deleted a lot of .signatures, but no luck.  I killed Moom, and that seems to have done the trick.  Curiously, I can't now replace my .signatures from Time Machine.  Ah, well.  Not to worry.  I never used most of them anyway.


Weather App in iOS 7 - can't get the top location to delete or move

The reason is that the one at the top is always based on current location - meaning it's not a favorite you've set, it's using the GPS to get your location.

All the others are configurable.


Is it safe to eject my timemachine backup whilst its decrypting?

I had to leave, so took a punt and ejected my drive. Timemachine took up where it left off when I remounted the drive, no problems!


What form factor, connector needed to replace SSD in 2015 Macbook Air?

I recently went through something similar myself. Apple uses a proprietary 28 pin connecter which means that industry standard M.2 will not work directly unless used with an adapter. I have a Macbook Pro Mid 2015 and chose to go with the OWC Aura Pro X2. You essentially have 3 options:

Get an SSD from OWC. The Aura Pro X2 provides double the speed of your current SSD. You can find a compatible SSD here.
Buy any standard M.2 SSD from Amazon and get a Sintech M.2 to Apple 28 Pin SSD adapter (Make sure you buy one appropriate to your year). There have been reports of this method causing issues with wake and sleep, battery drain, etc.
Transcend used to make SSDs for Macbooks called JetDrives. Look it up on their website.

Personally speaking, the OWC Aura Pro X2 might be your best option. The only drive that will fit in your Macbook are ones that conform to Apple's proprietary 28 Pin Connectors. This too has changes with every year. So make sure you get the year right while getting the SSD.


Command Tilde in Finder, prevent focus on Desktop at end of cycle

It is selecting the Desktop, and any icons on it.


Safari sync is for browsing history, bookmarks and reading list.

Passwords are synchronised through Keychain, a separate option in iCloud.


Minecraft Immediately Crashes On Launchup

Do you have mods? Delete those first then try. To delete them go into application support then minecraft then mods and delete them.


MacBook Pro with Retina display VGA problem

To correct the resolution, open the Display panel in System Preferences, connect your monitor if not already connected, and look for the Display preference window on the projector.  Click on "Scaled" instead of "Best for display".  Then hold the Option (⌥) key while clicking again on "Scaled" and you will see a list of resolutions to choose from.

You can then select an appropriate resolution from the list.

To correct the color, click in the Color tab in that same window, and either choose from one of the available color profiles, or click the "Calibrate..." button and adjust the color as needed.


After upgrading to High Sierra NTFS format mobile HDD fails to load

I also have similar problem, but luckily, it can read the drives. Perhaps your drive was not mounted. Now I temporarily use virtual Windows through VirtualBox to write to the drives while waiting for a complete solution.

My machine is iMac late 2015.


What is the most efficient and reliable method for transfering/copying a large number of files from one external hard drive to another?

If you would like to copy drive A to drive B exactly you can do this with Disk Utility.

We will be using Disk Utility's restore function. Some background on the different between Restoring vs copy and pasting:

The Restore function in Disk Utility makes use of a block copy
function that can speed up the copy process. It also makes an almost
exact copy of the source device. When we say "almost exact," we don't
mean to imply that useful data may get left behind, because that's not
the case. What it means is that a block copy copies everything in a
data block from one device to the other. The results are almost an
exact copy of the original. A file copy, on the other hand, copies
data file by file, and while the file data remains the same, the
location of the file on the source and destination devices will likely
be very different.
Using a block copy is faster, but it does have some limits that affect
when it can be used, the most important being that copying block by
block requires that both the source and destination devices be first
unmounted from your Mac. This ensures that block data doesn't change
during the copy process. Don’t worry, though; you don’t have to do the
unmounting. Disk Utility’s Restore function takes care of that for
you. But it does mean that neither the source nor the destination can
be in use when you use the Restore capabilities.

Source: https://www.lifewire.com/use-disk-utility-to-clone-macs-drive-4042367

Instructions
for copying all files from Device A to Device B

WARNING: When you restore one volume to another, all the files on the destination volume are erased. Before you restore a volume, copy
any files on the destination volume that you want to save to a
different volume.

Choose View > Show All Devices.
Select the volume in the sidebar you want to restore, then click the Restore button  or choose
Edit > Restore.

This is the volume that is erased and becomes the exact copy. [Device B]

Click the Restore pop-up menu, then choose the volume you want to copy [Device A].
Click Restore, then click Done.

Source: https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/restore-a-disk-dskutl14062/mac


How to change Macbook Pro (late 2013) screen and top cover

I have exactly the same problem with my MacBook (as I bought it in such a condition). I bought the screen from eBay. Its quite easy to fix if you follow the instructions on iFixit. You should consider buying only display, not the whole top assembly, as the prices really different. If your top cover is OK, you don't need to buy it, its possible just to change LCD matrix.


Since I got the popup in iOS Simulator, I was able to use Safari's Develop menu to inspect the page.  From there it was just an exercise in rooting around to find the obfuscated JavaScript, which, when run through jsbeautifier.org (which has the side effect of de-obfuscating it), looks like this:

var m = ['iphone', 'ipod', 'ipad', 'android'],
    u = navigator['userAgent']['toLowerCase']();
for (var d = 0; d < m['length']; d++) {
    if (u['indexOf'](m[d]) != -1) {
        if (confirm('Why you no play Candy Crush!!')) {
            window['top']['location'] = document['getElementById']('creative')['href'];
            break;
        };
    };
};

I think it's pretty safe to say that this is indeed a rogue ad, since on the page where I saw it, the ad itself was blank.  It's trying to get you to click through to a link.

So, in other words, it's a real pain in the buttocks, but probably not actual malware.  The ad in question is apparently delivered by AdMax by NEXAGE, so I'll see what I can do about alerting them.


Automatically login to Mac even when using Apple ID as Mac account password

If you are on Mavericks then open syst pref users and select the log in options.

Now you can select the Auto log in off or User name.


Where is java? Java Control Pannel has disabled "View" button and Terminal still response with "No Java runtime present, requesting install"

Oracle's JRE for OSX does not install all you need for development work. This now means that you do not get /usr/bin/java which in earlier non OSX versions you did. The OSX JRE now provides enough to run Java plugins from your web browser.

If you want to do development you need the JDK currently Java SE 7u40 which is here.


Mac preview crash everytime when searching

This could be a symptom of a corrupted Spotlight index.  You can rebuild your Spotlight index using Apple's instructions:

http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716

Just realize that it can take a while to rebuild depending on how many files you have on your hard drive(s).


What sorts of apps should I grant Keychain access to?

First off - I strongly prefer apps that securely store secrets, therefore it's almost always a sign of quality that an App even knows what the keychain is. Rarely is it a sign they are there to loot your passwords, but if you grant unlimited access, that can happen. It's commendable to use proper coding practices, so spending time to learn specifics of Keychain Access is your next challenge:

What sort of app requests keychain access?
Have you audited that they only store their secrets there and don't access other items?

Worst case, just say no. Then see what breaks in the app or work out the specifics of how it stores items and ensure you can use Keychain Access to see that the app is only accessing items it should in the granular permissions settings.

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/MCHLF375F392/10.15/mac/10.15.4

The help guides on macOS are very good for learning how to get to the basics.


automator shell script application doesn't work in 10.13

About my previous analysis, I was totally wrong.

I ignore an important thing, Java version, not mac os x version. I just installed jdk 10 additionally and I also have jdk 8 in my system. Of course I set environment variable JAVA_HOME for jdk 8 in .bash_profile and .bashrc files, I checked java version in Terminal, it's java 8, everything is fine.

But in automator running process, java version is 10

Change shell script for getting error message

RADIR=`ps x | grep jmeter | grep -v grep | cut -c 28- `
java -version > ~/log.jmeter 2>&1 &
COMMAND="$(dirname "$RADIR")/jmeter/bin/jmeter >> ~/log.jmeter 2>&1 &"
eval $COMMAND

log.jmeter:

  java version "10.0.1" 2018-04-17

  Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 18.3
  (build 10.0.1+10)

  Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM 18.3 (build
  10.0.1+10, mixed mode)

  Error: Java version is too low to run JMeter. Needs at least Java >= 1.8.0.

What!!!! That's the problem~~~

Change shell script to fix it:

export JAVA_HOME="$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.8)"
export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin
RADIR=`ps x | grep jmeter | grep -v grep | cut -c 28- `
COMMAND="$(dirname "$RADIR")/jmeter/bin/jmeter > /dev/null 2>&1 &"
eval $COMMAND

It works well.

So, there are two problems in this issue:

Jmeter is not support jdk 10 (wait for official update)
How to properly set java home environment variable for automator?


Approve This iPhone: Reset Protected Data

I believe protected iCloud data are passwords, home, and health data.

The issue has now reared it's head on my computer. The following is copied from the help about the issue:
"To keep your protected iCloud data secure-for example, passwords, home, and health data-you must authorize this Mac to use your iCloud account."

I personally don't use any of those and am ready for them to be re-set. This has been a growing problem for me from one device to all one them over the past few months.

If it really is just that data then hopefully the reset will take care of the issue (I don't store that data anyway out of data privacy and security concerns).  This seems to have been happening since iOS 10. I had it for more than 6 months before this issue popped up for me.

When I did this on my phone and selected to reset protected data I got the following message to confirm the reset:
"Passwords, home and other protected data stored in iCloud will be permanently deleted. You can't undo this action."

Keychain reset (don't use)
No other messages popped up.

After doing the reset on my phone then I was requested (on my phone) to authorize my iPad and computer (two separate requests).  I entered my password, clicked allowed.  After turning off then on my iPad it resolved the issue on the iPad and computer.


Mac how to remove instance icon from array

It sounds like the issue you are facing is converting from Windows to Mac.

In macOS most applications are disassociated from the closing of windows, an example would be in the Safari web browser. If you close all the windows the application remains open because you only closed the windows, you didn't quit the application.

This is signifciantly different from Windows where closing a window typically quit the application.

In some applications on macOS closing the last window will quit the application but it isn't standard or default behaviour.

There is no option to make this happen. You can quit the application using ⌘ + Q (Command + Q), the shortcut you mentioned you forgot is  Command + W.

Essentially Command + W is not the same as Alt + F4 and there is no way to make macOS behave this way as unlike Windows you cannot easily make macOS open multiple applications from the same link, i.e. clicking Chrome twice doesn't open two Chrome windows, it opens Chrome then brings it to the front on the second click.


iPhone: How to sync large library of MP3 + flac files from Win10 laptop

There are multiple ways of doing this I suggest the simplest one .
First you need to download iMazing app on your windows .
iMazing PC Download
iMazing MacOS Download

Launch iMazing and connect your device to your Mac or PC.
Select your device in the sidebar, then select "Music".
Click "Import from Folder", and select the music you want to import.
Transfer your Music.


iOS - Deleting pictures after syncing with iTunes

If iCloud Photo Library, iCloud Photo Sharing, and Upload to My Photo Stream is off, deleting the pictures you import either via Photos app or Image Capture won't delete them from your computer the next time you connect your iOS device (or in the time between), as there is no library sync in place.


Why can't I sync Photos on my Mac with Photos on my iPhone?

The solution, it turned out, was to quit Photos then relaunch it while holding down the Option key. It then asked me to pick a system photo library and I re-selected the existing system photo library. Then when I launched iTunes, "sync photos" gave me the option of syncing selected albums from Photos, as desired.

I've no clue what went wrong or why this would fix it, but it did.


Only as a hobby project since PowerPC market is dying.

Try this filter on the base that once was Version Tracker.
Also you may use Universal Apps List from Apple through Wayback Machine


Lion Safari's enabled and disabled button contrast is so low it's hard to see the difference

Nope, sadly, there is no UI control for changing such contrast. You'd have to play within the app's insides and it may cause problems down the way, and might have to be done every time the app is update. Therefore, much less trouble to live with it than change it. :-)


Should I avoid booting my MacBook if it's really cold?

It depends how “minus”. In general, li-on batteries live longer if you respect their acceptable operating temperatures. In the case of your Macbook Pro, Apple has a dedicated page with tips about Battery Maintenance.

If you observe the temperature graph on the left, the Minus degrees are not in the “I like this” zone.

Truth is, your MBP will get warm relatively fast, but if your MBP is at 0ºC, I’d wait a little bit. At those temperatures, depending upon the dew point and the humidity (among other factors) the risk of running moisture is higher, especially if the MBP will start heating fast when you turn it on.

Just let the machine heat for a few minutes at room temperature to be safe. Of course, if you have to use it one day, the battery is not going to die on you. Remember, extreme temperatures are enemies of batteries!

The cold Swedish tundra is not a friendly place for a Li-on battery :)


sudo: /etc/sudoers is owned by uid 501, should be 0

You can boot into single user mode by pressing Cmd-S on startup (see OS X: How to start up in single-user or verbose mode for details) which should give you a root shell. Then run

mount -uw /
chown root:wheel /etc/sudoers
chmod 440 /etc/sudoers
reboot

to fix the problem and restart.


What's the maximum amount of users I can have on OS X and how many of these can be logged in at the same time?

I'm wondering whether or not it's possible to put all ~400 users on each computer so that the grades can use each others' Macs interchangeably

Most certainly. I'm at a university where they do this on a much larger scale (think about 10–20k), so 400 should be possible — but, it also depends on the school's IT infrastructure. The user directories and settings are all on a central server (or perhaps server farm, I don't know) and each machine pulls the info when you login. You can login from any machine anywhere in the campus.

Typically, the maximum number of accounts the server can have is limited by the storage space, and the number of simultaneous logins are typically limited by the amount of memory, processing power available and network bandwidth (the clients need to communicate with the server and a single server can only process a certain number of requests at a time). So a definite answer is hard to provide.

The general approach is to spread the load (when demand spikes) over a cluster of servers or a server farm such that the end-user performance remains the same. Of course, no one expects the entire campus to be connecting all at once (there probably aren't enough machines for that). You can read more load balancing here.

This discussion mentions a software enforced default limit of 1024 simultaneous connections, extendable up to 2048. If you find yourself running at the far end of this limit, then you're either not balancing your load properly or you're under equipped.


Is there a shortcut for setting labels in Finder?

Use ⌘+I when the folder is selected.
This will bring up the Get Info box. Once you expand the section General, it will be already be expanded the next time you trigger the info box.

I've searched "MacOSX Hints" for tips and found this which also refers to this:
With Lion you can add a toolbar icon to label a folder with just one click.


A DMG file (Apple Disk Image) is a disk image file that is mounted as a volume, just like a physical disk. They can be password protected and compressed (like ZIPs), and are usually used for packaging and downloading Mac software (amongst other things).

DMGs are exclusively an Apple file format (though can be opened as read-only on Windows computers with 3rd party software), while a ZIP file is universal, and can be opened on both Mac and Windows. The nice thing about them is the ability to mount them, as I mentioned earlier. When you open a ZIP, it extracts the files to your computer, taking up more space on your hard drive. A DMG once mounted, however, can be interacted with and ejected without copying any files or taking up space on your hard drive.

@klanomath said it best in their comment on this answer, so I will quote them here:

  All valid DMGs contain a file system - so they are mounted exactly like a real partition to a file system. They get their own device/disk identifier (like all disks) Check diskutil list after opening a DMG.


Can I proxy traffic / domains through my phone by tethering to carrier data?

Why not just edit the hosts file on the laptop?  Unless you don't own the laptop...

Another option here is to have your iPhone connect via a proxy. Here's an example of how to do it with Fiddler.

In that case any dns lookups your iPhone does will use the hosts file of the machine Fiddler is running on.


Addressing Console.app messages on badly installed and removed software

You should be able to get rid of the Console.app message by entering the following command in Terminal:

sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.edb.launchd.postgresql-9.0

That should unload the postgresql daemon.


Order of operations on clean High Sierra install: APFS Encryption or Filevault? Both?

Here is what I found useful for me. To avoid a double login situation, or where you see both the User login and Disk Password on the login screen after boot, do NOT select APFS Encrypted in Disk Utility when formatting the hard drive. Select the regular APFS file format, and THEN apply Filevault once you complete setup.

This applies to when you are installing from a bootable usb stick, as it was in my case.

I hope this is helpful for you!


MacBook 15-inch speakers on when closed, is it damaging them?

No, the device will just be muffled. You needen’t worry about closed clamshell mode if you don’t have other microphones and speakers engaged or selected.


You'll want to override iTerm's default shortcuts with your own shortcuts to "Ignore".

Go to Preferences > Key and press the + button at the bottom of the Global Shortcut Keys:

Then add an entry for Cmd+K and choose "Ignore" for the action:

This disables Cmd+K.


iTunes My Music - Allowing Explicit Content Disabled (personal library)

It looks pretty clear to me.
Apple are obeying the laws of the country you live in, presumably India judging by the number of Google hits I see for this issue.

Your only possibility would be to try to change your iTunes Store Country - but that would be dependant on you being able to provide a credit card from that country.

See Apple KB - Change the country of your iTunes Store...


Way to temporarily disable badge notifications while using iPhone?

If you go to Settings -> Do Not Disturb, you can select to have Do Not Disturb work Always, even when the phone is not locked.


iTunes 12 doesn't show the correct number of photos to be synced and doesn't sync all photos

I think that the 4,372 photos are all of your photos, as opposed to just photos to be synced. In other words, around 500 photos of those photos have already been synced to your iPad.


It can be found in an easy to read format using the system information app:

System Information.app > Software > Installations

System information can be found in /Applications/Utilities/System Information.app or via Spotlight.


Has file copy dialog disappeared in OS X Yosemite?

It turns out that Box Sync was indeed causing problems. I uninstalled Box Sync and the progress dialog in Finder reappeared.


Re-download apps with second computer/device

There's also the option of Family Sharing that Apple introduced in iOS 8.

This allows you to share apps, music, and other purchases while still being able to maintain separate Apple ID's for other purposes.


Can Apple's Notes handle pictures pasted from Clipboard?

The answer to your question is yes, sort of. Notes in Mac OS can handle pictures either dragged in or pasted in from the clipboard. I didn't know this would work but just tried it and it worked perfectly.

My Notes syncs with both my iPad and iPhone through iCloud. In iOS the image pasted into a note on my Mac is represented by a paper clip and deleting that paper clip on an iOS device does not seem to delete the picture on Mac OS even after sync, so it doesn't work quite as well as I'd like with iCloud and iOS but works fine with Mac OS.

My guess is this capability is going to be expanded in a future version of notes and this is a place marker.


How can I fix this pixelated Macbook Pro display malfunction?

I've seen issues similar to this. The problem was a bad video "card". The fix was to replace the whole motherboard because the video card is integrated and not seperate.

Even if it is out of warranty and Apple retail store will diagnose this issue for you to confirm my diagnosis. They may also give you a cost to fix it.

Good luck.


Why do the photos on my iPhone 7 seem to be losing quality?

The answer is in the Optimize iPhone Storage setting.

When enabled, only thumbnails of photos are stored in local storage. By viewing a photo, you are downloading a compressed version from iCloud. There is no quality loss, since the original photos are still accessible by loading them one by one or turning this optimization off.

I believe that iCloud Photo Library uses some kind of lossy compression.


Can the DocSets installed by Xcode be moved to an external disk?

In Terminal, run

mv ~/Library/Developer/Shared/Documentation/DocSets /Volumes/HDNAME
ln -s /Volumes/HDNAME/DocSets ~/Library/Developer/Shared/Documentation/DocSets

This may take a few minutes to complete.


You can use a document reader. When it ask to choose your files, you can click "all my files", where the files can be sort by type. Then choose all the files you want to open.


Using scp with large files kills ethernet?

Turns out: the culprit was neither the Mac itself, nor my Linux box.

I later found that the LogiLink USB-C to Ethernet adapter caused this.

And for the record - there were various other symptoms, such as:

download of large files in my browser being extra slow
replicating large files via IBM Notes not only being slow, but basically turning the whole machine into "almost unresponsive" mode


I asked at an Apple store, and basically the answer is "no".

The best workaround we could come up with is creating a Youtube account, making a playlist on Youtube, adding all the videos I want to that, and then playing them through AppleTV.  It's not exactly convenient, though.


Cannot differentiate between LEFT ⌘ (0x37) and RIGHT ⌘ (0x36) keys

Why didn't it try this before? Removing Microsoft's drivers was the solution! Right-ALT now acts as Option_R out-of-the-box (and isn't affected by swapping CMD/ALT with OPTION/Windows key on the left side).


Why is the App Store not automatically showing the update for macOS Sierra?

Update (Oct 3, 2016)

Apple will now automatically download the upgrade for macOS Sierra on computers running OS X 10.11 El Capitan. You will see it automatically download as long as you have enough disk space, and have Automatic Updates enabled.

You must still specifically run the installer to upgrade to macOS Sierra.

Original Answer

macOS Sierra is not an update. It is an upgrade.

In macOS/OS X, upgrades are not automatically offered to you through the Update tab of the Mac App Store, nor the Automatic Updates functionality. You will not see behaviour like Microsoft offering Windows 10. You must specifically download the installer (and run it) to upgrade to macOS Sierra.

Either click on its entry in the Mac App Store (currently in the Featured tab), or by opening this direct link.


My SSD Drive has been converted to a Core Storage drive and cannot be erased/reformatted?

You can blow away a corestorage disk partition by booting in Single User Mode...  then use this command:

WARNING: THIS WILL RUIN ALL DATA ON THE DISK!

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk0

After a moment you will see an error that the corestorage volume has come offline unexpectedly (that is because you have destroyed it).  You can now type Ctrl+. to stop ruining the disk.

Then you can boot in Recovery mode (hold down Ctrl+R upon boot) and proceed to format this disk.


Yes, both the Summary and encrypt local backup options are available.

To view the Summary

Before you can view the summary of any device, you first need to connect it via cable to your Mac and have iTunes running. Once you've done this, if your Sidebar is visible, your device will appear in the list (which is probably where you've been looking). However, this is not where you can access the Summary from.

Instead, near the top left where the drop-down menu is to select from Music, Movies, etc you will now see on the right of it a device icon. Click on that to view the Summary for the connected device.

Encrypt backup

Once you've got the Summary up (as per above) you will see a Backups section in the centre of the screen. It is from there you can enable the encrypt backup option.


Download El Capitan Installer now that Sierra is out

It depends on your circumstances. It can be difficult to find old OS downloads.

If you purchased it previously it will be in the App Store under the Purchased tab.

If your mac came with it pre-installed you may have to go the internet recovery or Recovery HD route, but that would entail wiping your hard drive in order to do the install. You could then migrate your user data from a Time Machine backup or similar.

Alternatively, if you have a bootable backup of your El Cap system (assuming you had it installed) you could reinstall that.

More specific answers will require more specific information from you (it's generally a good idea/helpful to provide more information so that answers can be geared towards your situation and others in the same situation can benefit).

Whatever you do, make sure you have a full working backup (which you have tested) so that you can revert should something fail.


USB Device (Camera) Was Connected, but I choose to "Do Not Do Anything", Cannot Get It To Show Now

Open the Image Capture app and select the camera. You can manually import images or change the settings. This app manages the cameras and bulk image import from storage media for macOS Catalina and lower.


What's the difference between real memory and CPU, and what are there effects on the performance of my computer?

CPU is the Central Processing Unit. It's an Intel microprocessor. It performs calculations (or more precisely, computations).

Memory is temporary data storage space used by active processes being executed by the CPU.

If we were talking about cars the CPU would be the engine and the memory would be the seats (or possibly the cup holder).


There are a few apps that are available to use as Fan Utilities - they will show you current speed, as well as allow you to enable the fans to full blast.

Here's one I have used previously:

https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/23049/smcfancontrol

--
Ed


It seems like your iOS software might be corrupted. I would suggest you to backup your iPhone through iTunes (no worries, iTunes doesn't detect whether your device is jailbroken) and restore your device to factory settings, restore from your backup and jailbreak again. If everything goes smoothly, try to be careful when adding sources or downloading apps and tweaks, because if you add untrusted sources, viruses might be downloaded and since file viewing is possible on a jailbroken device by users, viruses can too.

If you're afraid to lose your jailbreak settings and any configurations you have made or you have bought paid apps, I recommend you to backup all of your apps and tweaks by downloading OpenBackup via Cydia. I doubt you'll be able to do all that because the process of downloading and installing the app, and backing up the contents take more than 2 minutes. I was using iOS 5 when I was tempted to upgrade to iOS 6 and my iPhone was "bricked", so I had to give up my jailbreak and restored my iPhone (same as yours that time, iPhone 3GS). Few months later I bought an iPhone 4S and tried to jailbreak it and I was happy to realize that my jailbreak settings were still there! So I hope when you restore your iPhone and jailbreak again it will have all your jailbreak settings.

Hope this helps.


Auto FaceTime call using AppleScript, without confirmation

In macOS High Sierra the Call button in directly on the face of the FaceTime window and why click button "Call" of window 1 of application process "FaceTime" works.

Is this true for macOS Mojave too, and then when that button is clicked one also gets the Notification Center Alert, or when placing the call it only shows the Notification Center Alert with the Call button on it?

The following example AppleScript code will wait for Notification Center to display a window and click the Call button, assuming it has one.

tell application "System Events"
    repeat until (exists window 1 of application process "Notification Center")
        delay 0.1
    end repeat
    click button "Call" of window 1 of application process "Notification Center"
end tell

Obviously this does not take into account if there is more then one notification, say if one existed prior to the call being made and had not yet been dismissed. In that scenario, additional coding will be necessary to target the specific notification.

Update: After some additional testing, under macOS High Sierra, the previous paragraph may be an unnecessary statement if the result are the same under macOS Mojave. The testing revealed that if a notification is present when another one is displayed, then the latest notification displayed is placed at the top of the window list in Notification Center and is then window 1. In that case, the following example AppleScript code may work for you:

set phone_num to "mailxyz@mail.com"
do shell script "open facetime://" & quoted form of phone_num
tell application "System Events"
    repeat until (exists window 1 of application process "Notification Center")
        delay 0.1
    end repeat
    click button "Call" of window 1 of application process "Notification Center"
end tell

This example code assumes in macOS Mojave when placing the call, in this manner, it only shows the Notification Center Alert with the Call button on it.

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.


Stop tilde and grave acting as deadkeys on French Macbook Pro keyboard (AZERTY)

You can do this by making a custom layout with Ukelele.

Duplicate the French layout, then click on the dead keys and choose "change to output."


Why would I disable swap file in Mac OS X?

wonder why one would want to disable the swap file in Mac OS X.
  Does it increase performance? Stability?
  Any downsides?

I suppose people would do it for an SSD drive because those drives don't have the same lifetime as standard magnetic spinning-disk drives. There are a more limited number of write cycles, so presumably using them with a swap file would use up these cycles more quickly.

  Finally, does it make any sense to disable swap file when not using SSD?

If you have a lot of RAM, this would possibly speed up performance, but it's not a good idea in general. If you do run up against the memory ceiling, things are going to get flaky.

Also, wired memory isn't released when it becomes invalid, it is only released when a page out event is triggered, which won't happen if Virtual Memory is disabled. So it won't take long for all your memory to be gobbled up even if it is no longer used.


First, make sure it's not just a regular connectivity problem. I used to have an older MBP that displayed the same symptoms every now and then (with the stock HDD). Whenever it threw question-marks or missing file-system symbols at boot-time; I'd just pop it out, blow it like an old Nintendo cartridge, and pop it back in. If that's not the problem;

Make sure your AC adapter is plugged in and connected to your Mac.
Turn your Mac on, by hitting the power button, as per usual.
Press and hold:  ⌘ Command+R until you see the
 Apple logo or the OS X Utilities.
First off; you can try repairing and/or erasing your drive etc. via the Disk Utility.
Finally; if all else fails, just select Reinstall OS X and follow the prompts.
The installer requires Internet Access. You can choose a network from the Wi-Fi Menu.
(top-right).


How can I use Sparrow to send iCal e-mail notifications instead of Mail.app?

There is a solution to your issue but it requires a little AppleScript jiggery pokery.

Johan Bruning posted an AppleScript for this on GitHub. He's included instructions for installing it in the README which is also visible on the project's GitHub page.

In his blog post about the script he writes, "I am happy to report it works like a charm and my iCal now finally sends e-mails trough Sparrow."


To display the status of indexing
# mdutil -s /
To clear the metadata store
Turn indexing off for /
# mdutil -i off /
Clear the metadata store for /
# mdutil -E /
Turn indexing back on for /
# mdutil -i on /


Problem setting up 2FA for the first time

I just had this same issue and tried many different things. In the end I resorted to contacting Apple who were extremely helpful. The thing to do is access another device which is logged in with the same iCloud account, and ensure that keychain is switched on. If it isn't, turn it on. From there just follow it through and if you have to reset your keychain data then do it. You'll then be able to get around the original 'Waiting for approval' issue on the initial device.


Keynote Play presentation on 1 display and Just see my desktop on my second

This issue has been bugging me for ages. However, Apple has finally updated Keynote, half-assed but still.
In Keynote 10.1, there is finally the Play > Play Slideshow in Window option which does exactly that.
You'll have a window (where still the window bar shows up when you move the mouse, well done Apple!) with your presentation, you can resize it and move it wherever you want, share it with Zoom or another video conference tool and still be able to see your Desktop.


Thanks for the help.
I had to go through and re-assign all of the fall-thru variables that I was using. not sure if they were always called magic-variables, but after conversion to ios14 all of my formulas had only "Number" in where I had previously used the result from the previous operation. Once I assigned all of the "Number"s to real values, everything worked again.


Read/Edit Textedit icloud files on an iPad

As @patrix said there is no way.

However you can use iA Writer. It's an application available for Mac, iPad and iPhone, which allows you to read and write txt files, which are the same produced by Textedit. It as a native iCloud and Dropbox support.

Unfortunately it is not free.

Alternatively Brett Terpstra has an amazingly comprehensive review of iOS editors where you can find a replacement or be alerted when a program does in fact cooperate with TextEdit for document storage in iCloud.


Is there a way of swiping between single spaces on a multi-monitor setup?

This is not possible, the multi monitor support on Lion is ridiculously lacking, especially given Apple jumping up and down about how amazing Thunderbolts (and the displays) are.

If you want to use more than one screen, you are pretty much unable to use FullScreen. (without making the secondary screen useless)


Is there a preference file where MobileMe username and password are saved?

On Mac computers, no password information is stored in plain-text preference files -- it's all kept securely in the Keychain, which you can view using the Keychain Access utility.


After iOS 13 and Mac OS Catalina, it seems that Apple needs to introduce a helper utility to pair the device.

I’m an iOS developer and we use Xcode’s built in utility to pair and unpair devices.

Sometimes the device doesn’t get automatically connected so we have to connect it via a fixed IP address.

Open Xcode (can be downloaded free)
Open devices and simulators
Connect via IP

More details can be found here.


If I temporarily remove an external HD from my Mac, then re-introduce it a few weeks later, will Time Machine back it all up again?

If this is a Time Machine disk, disconnecting it and then reconnecting it in the future will simply make Time Machine update it when it is plugged in as normal, meaning it will back up whatever has changed. It will not erase the drive and start from scratch. It will simply resume where it left off.

Or do you mean that this external disk was one of the drives that Time Machine was backing up onto another, separate drive? If so, it seems that if you use that drive on another computer and then try to back it up with Time Machine again, it may cause some problems (or may not. Just depends.) Also, in a case where TM hasn't backed up a drive in a while, it may lose much of its cache for that disk and appear to be backing everything up again when you plug it back in. However, in this case it seems that it's not actually backing it all up, it's only really keeping what has changed.


For right clicking, are ctrl-click and two-finger-tapping used exchangeably?

Yes, they can be used interchangeably. The two-finger tap is a shortcut employed by OS X for more convenience / accessibility, however, it has exactly the same function as the control-click.


You could make use of port build in command contents, which gives you the oportunity to do things like that:

port contents --size depof:python27

Grep the lines you need and do the maths :-)

Update: found answer here at guide.macports.

While reading a bit deeper, I found this

port space --units MB --total thisport

which is much more handy then calculating the sum of the size of each file inside a port.


How to rename osascript in the administrator privileges dialog?

I found a much better way of doing this, by digging through the Applescript doc on the Apple Developer's Site. I found this release note for  Applescript in MacOS 10.10

It says:

do shell script can now specify a custom prompt to use in the password dialog. [15194980]

However, it neglects to say how you can do that. After some guesswork, I figured out that there's a prompt clause that lets you replace osascript wants to make changes... with whatever you want when using do shell script...with administrator privileges in a script invoked by osascript.  For example:

osascript -e 'do shell script "ls -l" with prompt "The Great And Powerful OZ " with administrator privileges'

generates a dialog box that looks like:

I hope this helps someone.


There is a file named %FF at the root. What is it for?

That file isn't from OS X proper, so deleting it would likely be a good thing. I wish I could offer advice but haven't seen or heard of it, but it could be harmless or a problem with some software so checking that it doesn't re-appear might be good in a week. Anything writing things as root outside the normal user home folder or temp folders could be a sign of compromise or malware.


Command + Z check Edit menu if you are unsure if the shortcut is available for a program or a scenario.

On a side note, Command works as the default shortcut key on Mac OS X where Windows' default modifier key is Ctrl

This holds for Copy, Paste, Open, etc...


Go to settings, general, usage, music, swipe across all music and tap delete. If that doesn't work, try restoring it in iTunes. Plug it in and turn your iPod off, then hold the power and home buttons for eight seconds(a little bit after the screen turns black again) then release the power button but hold the home button for about seven seconds, or until iTunes recognizes it and tells you to restore it. After it is restored you will be able to restore your save data with iCloud if your device runs ios 5.If it doesn't, wait for another answer.


How can I determine where network data is going?

IMHO the most convenient and simple solution is the Network Monitor of Little Snitch.
It monitors all outgoing and incoming network in real time and provides

fine grained traffic information, combined with powerful yet simple options for analyzing bandwidth, traffic totals, connectivity status and much more.

Network traffic filtered by process (here network time protocol daemon):

Info for all ntpd traffic:

Info for one of the ntpd servers:

You can also filter for hostnames, ports or IP numbers.

A single license is ~30 €/$30. Black Friday offer is much cheaper - coupons are available sometimes.
No affiliation with Objective Development here.


Native RSS reader which allows to set explizit the status of an article

Thank you for your answers. After trying different web-based tools and native applications I returned to Thunderbird. Thunderbird supports RSS-Feeds as well and allows you to specify the amount of time you have to view a mail or article until it marks it as read. It also allows you to disable this at all and to mark articles manually as read.


Yes, downloads from iTunes on a desktop computer will count
By account


I have this problem on my work laptop occasionally. By looking at the system log in Console I found that SystemUIServer had hung. Going into Activity Monitor showed that SystemUIServer was not responding & force quitting the process instantly fixed the issue for me and my menu bar clock began keeping the correct time again.
See if that works for you.


You cannot have multiple native macOS Docks. There are Dock alternatives however, some which support multiple Docks and others that support just more organization. Compatibility is very much dependent on your version of macOS.
One alternative that seems to work with macOS High Sierra is uBar.


I need to copy a spreadsheet into mail directly edit and send

Numbers can do that.   Except the "not attachment bit', but if you select the bit that you want you can paste it directly into your E-mail.


In game app updates, bypassing App Store

I see a lot of games do this and I believe it's OK.

Think of a game as being 2 pieces: the app (program) and the data it runs on. Apps are generally allowed to download and store data.

If an update is merely adding new zones or items represented as various files or tables (with no new programmatic functionality needed), then it only needs to request new static data.

However: game engine updates would require a change to the app and therefore an update via the App Store.


!! is a history command of bash, it gets replaced by the last command you‘ve executed. You can try ls followed by echo !!
$(...) performs Command Substitution, the output of a command replaces the command name (the part within the ()). Again, echo $(!!) helps to illustrate this

So rm $(!!) removes all files whose names are printed after re-running the last command. Watch out for file names containing spaces or special characters like * or ? or ~; it won‘t work for those, or it will remove a different set of files than you’d think.

Given the risks it's probably safer to run echo PATTERN, verify the result and then go back one line in the history, replace echo by rm and execute this. Instead of navigating back you can also just run ^echo^rm^ (which uses history expansion to replace the command used in the line before).


rEFInd installation won't boot due to T2 security, despite T2 security being disabled

Recreating the Problem
Before I provide an answer which explains how to install rEFInd to work properly on a Mac with a T2 chip, I will first incorrectly install rEFInd by following a path similar to the one taken by the OP. I do this because the OP posted a comment stating the following.

Unfortunately, I had No Security set way before I installed rEFInd so this won't help with my issue.

I hope this newly edited answer will demonstrate to the OP that I can recreate the problem outlined in OP's question, then provide steps to eliminate the problem.
I am using a 2018 mac mini which has a T2 chip. The Mac is configure with the following setup.

The firmware password feature is turn off.
SIP is enabled.
Secure Boot is set to No Security..
External Boot is set to Allow.
Both Mojave and Catalina are installed in an APFS container. The label for the Mojave volume is Halibut2 and the labels for the Catalina volumes are Anchovy and Anchovy - Data.
Widows 10 is installed. The Boot Camp Assistant was used to accomplish this.
The rEFInd Boot Manager is installed in a Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) volume with the label rEFInd. The refind-install script with the --ownhfs option was used to install rEFInd. Note, when a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume is substituted, the results are the same.

The OP's question states: "EFI volume only contains the APPLE folder, even after installing rEFInd". This is the expected result since specifying --ownhfs as an option to refind-instal explicitly instructs this script to not put any rEFInd files in the EFI volume.

The output from the command diskutil list is shown below.
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         200.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                40.6 GB    disk0s3
   4:                  Apple_HFS rEFInd                  103.8 MB   disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +200.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Anchovy                 11.4 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Anchovy - Data          31.3 GB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Preboot                 133.7 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s5
   6:                APFS Volume Halibut2                136.7 GB   disk1s7

Note: The Windows 10 Disk Management utility was used to create a 100 MB FAT formatted partition with the label REFIND. As an alternative, I could have used macOS to create a partition between the APFS container and the Windows 10 (Boot Camp) partition.

An image of the Mac Startup Manager icons is shown below.

The label EFI Boot is used by the Mac Startup Manager when no valid label files exist in the folder containing the boot file. The label files can be created by using the macOS bless command. However, when a properly installed Windows 10 exists on an internal drive, then the default Mac Startup Manager label is Windows. The refind-install script does not install a Mac Startup Manager label for rEFInd, therefore the default Mac Startup Manager label will be EFI Boot.
When choosing rEFInd from the Mac Startup Manager, the following message box appears.

Both the OP and I installed rEFInd using the --ownhfs option. This option installs rEFInd to appear to be OS X. The firmware installed in older Macs would be fooled into thinking rEFInd was OS X and the firmware would boot rEFInd. Evidently, Macs with a T2 chip are still being fooled into thinking a version of OS X is installed, but will not boot rEFInd. As the OP discovered, clicking on the Update button will not solve this problem.

One possible solution would be to install rEFInd a FAT formatted volume that exists in either EFI or Microsoft type partition.

Fixing the Problem
Below documents the steps taken to get a properly installed rEFInd.

Boot to macOS. In this case, I choose Catalina.

Use the Disk Utility application to erase the volume with rEFInd label. The name REFIND and format MS-DOS (FAT) were selected. Afterwards, the output from the command diskutil list appeared as shown below.
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     314.6 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         200.0 GB   disk0s2
   3:       Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP                40.6 GB    disk0s3
   4:       Microsoft Basic Data REFIND                  103.8 MB   disk0s4

/dev/disk1 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +200.0 GB   disk1
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Anchovy                 11.4 GB    disk1s1
   2:                APFS Volume Anchovy - Data          31.3 GB    disk1s2
   3:                APFS Volume Preboot                 133.7 MB   disk1s3
   4:                APFS Volume Recovery                1.0 GB     disk1s4
   5:                APFS Volume VM                      2.1 GB     disk1s5
   6:                APFS Volume Halibut2                136.4 GB   disk1s7

Download rEFInd from this website to my Downloads folder. I downloaded version 0.12.0.

Enter the following commands in a Terminal application window to install rEFInd to the REFIND volume.

Note: Copying and pasting these commands may be easier than typing in by hand.

cd ~/Downloads/refind-bin-0.12.0
xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine .
sed -i '' "s/sed -i 's/sed -i '' 's/g" refind-install
diskutil unmount disk0s4
sudo ./refind-install --usedefault /dev/disk0s4
diskutil unmount disk0s4
diskutil mount disk0s4
sudo rmdir /tmp/refind_install

The above sed command fixes a bug in the refind-install script which causes the script to terminate early with the error message sed: -i may not be used with stdin. If you enter this command more than once, only the first entry will change the script.

The above commands produced the following output.
davidanderson@Anchovy ~ % cd ~/Downloads/refind-bin-0.12.0
davidanderson@Anchovy refind-bin-0.12.0 % xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine .
davidanderson@Anchovy refind-bin-0.12.0 % sed -i '' "s/sed -i 's/sed -i '' 's/g" refind-install
davidanderson@Anchovy refind-bin-0.12.0 % diskutil unmount disk0s4
Volume REFIND on disk0s4 unmounted
davidanderson@Anchovy refind-bin-0.12.0 % sudo ./refind-install --usedefault /dev/disk0s4
Password:
ShimSource is none
Installing rEFInd on macOS....
Installing rEFInd to the partition mounted at /tmp/refind_install
Copied rEFInd binary files

Copying sample configuration file as refind.conf; edit this file to configure
rEFInd.

davidanderson@Anchovy refind-bin-0.12.0 % diskutil unmount disk0s4
Volume REFIND on disk0s4 unmounted
davidanderson@Anchovy refind-bin-0.12.0 % diskutil mount disk0s4
        Volume REFIND on disk0s4 mounted
davidanderson@Anchovy refind-bin-0.12.0 % sudo rmdir /tmp/refind_install

Note: The version 0.12.0 of the refind-install script contains an exit command which causes the script to terminate early without making rEFInd the default at startup. This allows the script to be executed without disabling SIP. The procedure for making rEFInd the default at startup is given in a later step.

Enter the following command to changed the label in the Mac Startup Manager for rEFInd from EFI Boot to rEFInd.
bless --folder /Volumes/REFIND/EFI/BOOT --label rEFInd

Restart the mac and immediately hold down the option key until the Mac Startup Manager icons appeared. To make rEFInd the default at startup, hold down the control key while selecting rEFInd.

After these changes, the Mac correctly boots to rEFInd at startup.

Note: I did not need to disable SIP or boot to MacOS Recovery to install rEFInd. You may wish to do either or both as described in Roderick W. Smith's webpage The rEFInd Boot Manager: rEFInd and System Integrity Protection.

Configuring rEFInd
Below is an cropped image of what was displayed by rEFInd.

Note: I noticed that selecting macOS from rEFInd can result in the Mac booting to a white screen. To recover, the Mac needs to be turned off and restarted while holding down the option key to request the Mac Startup Manager. After booting macOS from the Mac Startup Manager, this issue with rEFInd appeared to vanish.

This default arrangement also has the following deficiencies.

The two middle icons on the top row, which are shown below, have the same Boot macOS from Preboot label. There is no indication which is for Mojave or Catalina.  Also, rEFInd is suppose to highlight the previous choice when first displaying the icons. This does not happen when the second icon shown below is selected.

The last icon on the top row, which is shown below, has the label Boot Windows (Legacy) from NTFS volume. When selected, rEFInd will instruct the firmware to BIOS boot Windows 10. Since all Macs with a T2 chip cannot BIOS boot, clearly this choice is invalid and needs to be eliminated.

Two of the icons on the bottom row, which are shown below, have the same Start Apple Recovery on Recovery label. There is no indication which is for Mojave or Catalina.

UUID's can not be used to specify APFS volumes in the refind.conf file. Also, the APFS volume labels are not recognized by the dont_scan_dirs option.

Below outlines additions made to the refind.conf file to remedy the above and other possible deficiencies. This file can be found in the EFI/BOOT folder on the REFIND volume. The additions need be placed at the end of this file.

Reduce the changes of a label (name) conflict. By default, a bootable APFS containers have two hidden volumes with the labels "Preboot" and "Recovery". If a external drive with a bootable APFS container was plugged in to the Mac, then the duplicate labels could cause a conflict. To help prevent this from occurring, these labels need to be made more unique. In this case, the "Preboot" and "Recovery" labels will be changed to "Internal Preboot" and "Internal Recovery", respectively. For my Mac, the commands to rename these volumes is given below. These commands need to entered in a Terminal application window.
 diskutil mount disk1s3
 diskutil rename disk1s3 "Internal Preboot"
 diskutil unmount disk1s3
 diskutil mount disk1s4
 diskutil rename disk1s4 "Internal Recovery"
 diskutil unmount disk1s4

Add the following line to the end of the refind.conf file. This option causes rEFInd to store rEFInd specific variables in the EFI/BOOT/vars folder of the REFIND volume instead of NVRAM. This is done to avoid possible wear on the NVRAM,
 use_nvram false

Add the following line to the end of the refind.conf file to set the System Integrity Protect (SIP) values to enable and disable. This file can be found in the EFI/BOOT folder on the REFIND volume.
 csr_values 10,77

Add the following line to the end of the refind.conf file to set which tool icons to appear on the rEFInd display.
 showtools shell,gdisk,csr_rotate,memtest,apple_recovery,windows_recovery,about,hidden_tags,reboot,shutdown,exit

Even though specified, the follows tools icons will not appear for the following reasons.
shell: No shellx64.efi file exists in  in the EFI/tools folder. See the Installing Additional Components section of the Installing rEFInd page for pointers to acquiring this file. This file did work on my 2018 mac mini.
gdisk: No gdiskx64.efi file exists in the EFI/tools folder.  See the Installing Additional Components section of the Installing rEFInd page for pointers to acquiring this file. This file did not work on my 2018 mac mini.
memtest: No file exists in an acceptable folder. See the Installing Additional Components section of the Installing rEFInd page for pointers to acquiring this file. No file was ever tested on my 2018 mac mini.
apple_recovery: The two macOS Recovery boot files were skipped because two dont_scan_tools options were placed in the refind.conf file.
windows_recovery: The Boot Camp Assistant installed the Windows Recovery Environment (WRE) files inside the BOOTCAMP volume. No WRE partition was created, therefore rEFInd has no volume to scan.

Adding following option to the end of the refind.conf file  will instruct rEFInd to not search for BIOS boot loaders.
 scanfor internal,external,optical,manual

Replace any automatically created menu entries for Mojave and Catalina with manual entries. First, commands need to executed to determine the UUID for the Catalina APFS volume and Mojave APFS volume. For my Mac, the following commands were entered in a macOS Terminal application window. You will need to make the appropriate substitutions for the identifiers and resulting UUIDs.
 diskutil info disk1s1 | grep "Partition UUID"
 diskutil info disk1s7 | grep "Partition UUID"

For my Mac, the output from these commands is summarized below.
  Name (Label)       Type      Identifier             Partition UUID
 ---------------  -----------  ----------  ------------------------------------
 Anchovy          APFS Volume  disk1s1     315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394
 Halibut2         APFS Volume  disk1s7     56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4

Based on the above UUIDs, the following lines were be added to the end of the refind.conf file.
 dont_scan_files +,"Internal Preboot:\56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi"
 dont_scan_files +,"Internal Preboot:\315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi"

 menuentry "Mojave" {
     icon \EFI\BOOT\icons\os_mac.png
     volume "Internal Preboot"
     loader \56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi
     ostype "MacOS"
 }

 menuentry "Catalina" {
     icon \EFI\BOOT\icons\os_mac.png
     volume "Internal Preboot"
     loader \315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi
     ostype "MacOS"
 }

Prevent rEFInd from scanning the EFI volume for Windows boot files and create a manual entry for Windows. First, a command needs to executed to determine the UUID for the EFI volume. For my Mac, the following command was entered in a macOS Terminal application window. You will need to make the appropriate substitutions for the identifier and resulting UUID.
 diskutil info disk0s1 | grep "Partition UUID"

For my Mac, the output from this command is summarized below.
  Name (Label)       Type      Identifier             Partition UUID
 ---------------  -----------  ----------  ------------------------------------
 EFI              EFI          disk0s1     D118DCAC-1F89-4B1B-94AF-D078CB3FBA31

Based on the above UUID, the following lines were be added to the end of the refind.conf file.
 dont_scan_dirs +,D118DCAC-1F89-4B1B-94AF-D078CB3FBA31:/EFI/Boot
 dont_scan_dirs +,D118DCAC-1F89-4B1B-94AF-D078CB3FBA31:/EFI/Microsoft/Boot

 menuentry Windows {
     icon \EFI\BOOT\icons\os_win8.png
     volume "D118DCAC-1F89-4B1B-94AF-D078CB3FBA31"
     loader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
     ostype "Windows"
 }

Replace any automatically created menu entries for Mojave and Catalina macOS Recovery with manual entries. Here, the previous determined UUIDs can be use. You will need to make the appropriate substitutions for the identifiers and resulting UUIDs. Based on the UUIDs, the following lines were be added to the end of the refind.conf file.
 dont_scan_tools +,"Internal Recovery:\56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4\boot.efi"
 dont_scan_tools +,"Internal Recovery:\315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394\boot.efi"

 menuentry "Mojave" {
     icon \EFI\BOOT\icons\tool_rescue.png
     volume "Internal Recovery"
     loader \56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4\boot.efi
     ostype "MacOS"
 }

 menuentry "Catalina" {
     icon \EFI\BOOT\icons\tool_rescue.png
     volume "Internal Recovery"
     loader \315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394\boot.efi
     ostype "MacOS"
 }

Note: The icon file tool_rescue.png was chosen instead of tool_apple_rescue.png because the former has a size of 128 x 128 pixels and the latter has a size of only 48 x 48 pixels.

Below is a entire copy of the lines added to the end of the refind.conf file.
    use_nvram false
    csr_values 10,77
    showtools shell,gdisk,csr_rotate,memtest,apple_recovery,windows_recovery,about,hidden_tags,reboot,shutdown,exit
    scanfor internal,external,optical,manual

    dont_scan_files +,"Internal Preboot:\56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi"
    dont_scan_files +,"Internal Preboot:\315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi"

    menuentry "Mojave" {
        icon \EFI\BOOT\icons\os_mac.png
        volume "Internal Preboot"
        loader \56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi
        ostype "MacOS"
    }

    menuentry "Catalina" {
        icon \EFI\BOOT\icons\os_mac.png
        volume "Internal Preboot"
        loader \315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi
        ostype "MacOS"
    }

    dont_scan_dirs +,D118DCAC-1F89-4B1B-94AF-D078CB3FBA31:/EFI/Boot
    dont_scan_dirs +,D118DCAC-1F89-4B1B-94AF-D078CB3FBA31:/EFI/Microsoft/Boot

    menuentry Windows {
        icon \EFI\BOOT\icons\os_win8.png
        volume "D118DCAC-1F89-4B1B-94AF-D078CB3FBA31"
        loader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
        ostype "Windows"
    }

    dont_scan_tools +,"Internal Recovery:\56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4\boot.efi"
    dont_scan_tools +,"Internal Recovery:\315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394\boot.efi"

    menuentry "Mojave" {
        icon \EFI\BOOT\icons\tool_rescue.png
        volume "Internal Recovery"
        loader \56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4\boot.efi
        ostype "MacOS"
    }

    menuentry "Catalina" {
        icon \EFI\BOOT\icons\tool_rescue.png
        volume "Internal Recovery"
        loader \315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394\boot.efi
        ostype "MacOS"
    }

Below is an cropped image of what was displayed by rEFInd after adding the above lines.

The label for each icon is given below.
Boot Mojave from Internal Preboot
Boot Catalina from Internal Preboot
Boot Windows from EFI
Boot Mojave from Internal Recovery
Boot Catalina from Internal Recovery
Change SIP Policy
About rEFInd
Manage Hidden Tags Menu
Reboot Computer
Shutdown Computer
Exit rEFInd

Other Thoughts

The options could be simplified. First, a command needs to executed to determine the UUID for the APFS container. For my Mac, the following command was entered in a macOS Terminal application window. You will need to make the appropriate substitutions for the identifier and resulting UUID.
 diskutil info disk0s2 | grep "Partition UUID"

For my Mac, the output from this command is summarized below.
  Name (Label)       Type      Identifier             Partition UUID
 ---------------  -----------  ----------  ------------------------------------
 Container disk1  Apple_APFS   disk0s2     70DDFAEC-71CC-4A0F-8156-E0BEB9BAB69E

Next, the options
 dont_scan_files +,"Internal Preboot:\56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi"
 dont_scan_files +,"Internal Preboot:\315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi"
 dont_scan_tools +,"Internal Recovery:\56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4\boot.efi"
 dont_scan_tools +,"Internal Recovery:\315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394\boot.efi"

can be replace by the single option
 dont_scan_volumes 70DDFAEC-71CC-4A0F-8156-E0BEB9BAB69E

without changing the result. Basically, the change causes rEFInd to omit a search of the entire APFS container. This may result in a fast boot time to the rEFInd display.

The above could be improved on by replacing the options
 scanfor internal,external,optical,manual
 dont_scan_files +,"Internal Preboot:\56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi"
 dont_scan_files +,"Internal Preboot:\315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394\System\Library\CoreServices\boot.efi"
 dont_scan_dirs +,D118DCAC-1F89-4B1B-94AF-D078CB3FBA31:/EFI/Boot
 dont_scan_dirs +,D118DCAC-1F89-4B1B-94AF-D078CB3FBA31:/EFI/Microsoft/Boot
 dont_scan_tools +,"Internal Recovery:\56F74AC8-0BD4-4086-952E-7038EC7FCFE4\boot.efi"
 dont_scan_tools +,"Internal Recovery:\315F6481-E157-4528-B2FE-170370370394\boot.efi"

with the single option
 scanfor external,optical,manual

which also would not change the result. Basically, this change causes rEFInd to omit a search of the entire internal drive. This may result in an even faster boot time to the rEFInd display.

The rEFInd Boot Manager can also be installed to an ExFAT volume. Currently, refind-install will not permit this, so you would have to do a manual install. I verified installing rEFInd to a ExFAT volume does work, except I needed to rename tool_rescue.png to rescue.png. In other words, rEFInd will not accept long file names for the icon option when installed to an ExFAT volume.

Installing rEFInd to a FAT volume is a security risk. Since no password (or other security means) is required to access the volume where rEFInd is installed, malicious software could change the rEFInd files. One way to help prevent this from happening would be to change the partition type to EFI. This can be done in Windows by using the gdisk or diskpart command and in Linux by using the gdisk command. The gdisk or gpt command can be used in macOS, but this may require disabling SIP and/or booting to macOS Recovery. Note: After rEFInd is installed, SIP can be disabled by rEFInd, thus avoiding the need to boot to macOS Recovery. You can enable SIP from macOS by entering the command sudo csrutil clear.