macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

actionjackson: Jan 12, 2003

anyone know how to stop the Mac mail client putting a blank message in my drafts folder everytime I open it? This is for a gmail account. The message appears to be dated the last time I opened the application.

# ? Jul 10, 2019 04:24

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 9, 2024 05:42

XBenedict: May 23, 2006; YOUR LIPS SAY 0, BUT YOUR EYES SAY 1.

actionjackson posted:

anyone know how to stop the Mac mail client putting a blank message in my drafts folder everytime I open it? This is for a gmail account. The message appears to be dated the last time I opened the application.

Try this:

Mail>Preferences>Accounts>Select Account >Mailbox Behaviors:

Drafts Mailbox: On My Mac / Drafts

See if that fixes it.

That will save drafts locally instead of syncing them to Gmail. It probably wouldn't hurt to open Gmail web and clearing out any drafts in the Gmail folder....

# ? Jul 10, 2019 04:56

buglord: Jul 31, 2010; Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!; Buglord

Do you guys have any suggestions for anti-adblock blockers for macOS safari? I have Wipr installed from the app store, but an annoying amount of websites are being pesky about me having adblock on.

# ? Jul 10, 2019 08:14

BobHoward: Feb 13, 2012; The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull

buglord posted:

Do you guys have any suggestions for anti-adblock blockers for macOS safari? I have Wipr installed from the app store, but an annoying amount of websites are being pesky about me having adblock on.

Safari -> Settings for this Website lets you turn content blockers (including Wipr) on or off for that website.
Right clicking the reload icon in the URL bar lets you reload the page without content blockers one time (next time you go back, they'll be back on).

# ? Jul 10, 2019 08:57

Crunchy Black: Oct 24, 2017; by Athanatos

I do project management and hardware at work is exclusively Apple. I've heard good things about Merlin and I've started a trial, anything else I should look into?

# ? Jul 10, 2019 15:01

actionjackson: Jan 12, 2003

XBenedict posted:

Try this:

Mail>Preferences>Accounts>Select Account >Mailbox Behaviors:

Drafts Mailbox: On My Mac / Drafts

See if that fixes it.

That will save drafts locally instead of syncing them to Gmail. It probably wouldn't hurt to open Gmail web and clearing out any drafts in the Gmail folder....

thanks!

# ? Jul 10, 2019 16:05

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Violator posted:

You can change hot corners to require a modifier key (like cmd or option) by holding those buttons when you configure the hot corner. That doesn�t help you specifically but it�s an option if you don�t mind changing their activation a little in your normal use.

BobHoward posted:

Safari -> Settings for this Website lets you turn content blockers (including Wipr) on or off for that website.
Right clicking the reload icon in the URL bar lets you reload the page without content blockers one time (next time you go back, they'll be back on).

I'm assuming they wanted to keep blocking on and block the anti ad block popups. There's stuff for that although I figure it's just as much of a cat and mouse game so effectiveness will vary.

AdGuard has something under Annoyances filters -> Adblock Warning Removal List so that might work. One issue I've seen is there's a limit of rules (per extension?) for the content blocking API, so if everything is turned on I'm not sure what does/doesn't work. They also have another extension for (I assume) old style blocking which might work to get around that limit.

# ? Jul 10, 2019 23:34

Kobayashi: Aug 13, 2004; by Nyc_Tattoo

I use Safari as my default browser and like to keep Google contained to Chrome as much as possible. Is there any way to intercept links from Mail, Slack, etc. and ask which browser to use?

# ? Jul 11, 2019 03:45

Alec Eiffel: Sep 7, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

I recently used Migration Assistant to transfer my user account from an early 2009 iMac (I know, I know) to my more current 2013 iMac (I know, I know!).

Every time I restart and login to my account, it goes through the same set-up options: opting-in on data/privacy collection, enabling Siri, light/dark mode, and my user settings also get reset. I also cannot access Safari's preferences�it always freezes Safari whenever I do, though I don't know if that's related.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix these issues?

# ? Jul 11, 2019 18:35

AlternateAccount: Apr 25, 2005; FYGM

Alec Eiffel posted:

I recently used Migration Assistant to transfer my user account from an early 2009 iMac (I know, I know) to my more current 2013 iMac (I know, I know!).

Every time I restart and login to my account, it goes through the same set-up options: opting-in on data/privacy collection, enabling Siri, light/dark mode, and my user settings also get reset. I also cannot access Safari's preferences�it always freezes Safari whenever I do, though I don't know if that's related.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix these issues?

There's a file that tells the machine that setup has been completed. It's /var/db/.AppleSetupDone. It's a read-only empty file, iirc, owned by root. If it's not there or if you delete it, it will run the first time setup.

# ? Jul 11, 2019 22:00

Lazyhound: Mar 1, 2004; A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous—got me?

Try repairing permissions?

I�ve never had a problem with Migration Assistant.

# ? Jul 11, 2019 23:44

Hed: Mar 31, 2004; Fun Shoe

How can I disable Spotlight from suggesting web sites? I keep getting browser tabs going to expedia.com when I try to quickly Cmd+Space to launch an app that starts with "Express".

# ? Jul 12, 2019 17:33

Crunchy Black: Oct 24, 2017; by Athanatos

Hed posted:

How can I disable Spotlight from suggesting web sites? I keep getting browser tabs going to expedia.com when I try to quickly Cmd+Space to launch an app that starts with "Express".

use Alfred

# ? Jul 12, 2019 23:23

BobHoward: Feb 13, 2012; The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull

Hed posted:

How can I disable Spotlight from suggesting web sites? I keep getting browser tabs going to expedia.com when I try to quickly Cmd+Space to launch an app that starts with "Express".

Apple menu -> Preferences-> Spotlight -> Search Results -> uncheck Spotlight Suggestions (and anything else you might find annoying)

# ? Jul 12, 2019 23:42

Hed: Mar 31, 2004; Fun Shoe

Thanks guys--I had unchecked the spotlight suggestions in the bottom of the dialog box but it was still on the list. Working great now.

# ? Jul 13, 2019 04:25

nitsuga: Jan 1, 2007

Kobayashi posted:

I use Safari as my default browser and like to keep Google contained to Chrome as much as possible. Is there any way to intercept links from Mail, Slack, etc. and ask which browser to use?

Curious about this too. I�ve mostly settled on picking a default browser and sticking to it. I can always open up the other if something isn�t working right.

# ? Jul 13, 2019 05:16

BobHoward: Feb 13, 2012; The only thing white people deserve is a bullet to their empty skull

Hed posted:

Thanks guys--I had unchecked the spotlight suggestions in the bottom of the dialog box but it was still on the list. Working great now.

Yeah that checkbox is a bit confusing. It doesn't control normal Spotlight searches, it's for the special search that you get when you right click a word or phrase and select "Look Up". I actually leave that one on, it's not annoying to me. (Unlike getting web search results when I'm looking for something on my local disk, which is awful.)

# ? Jul 13, 2019 10:30

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

nitsuga posted:

Curious about this too. I�ve mostly settled on picking a default browser and sticking to it. I can always open up the other if something isn�t working right.

If something doesn�t exist for this, all I can think of is making a separate app that acts as a browser (so can be set as default) that accepts URLs then just passes on to whatever browser you pick.

# ? Jul 13, 2019 20:29

Toast Museum: Dec 3, 2005; 30% Iron Chef

japtor posted:

If something doesn’t exist for this, all I can think of is making a separate app that acts as a browser (so can be set as default) that accepts URLs then just passes on to whatever browser you pick.

I had the same thought. If it's worth :10bux:

to you, there's apparently an app called Choosy that does this.

# ? Jul 13, 2019 20:49

actionjackson: Jan 12, 2003

Could someone tell me what the default access control settings should be for the keychain login, both the private and public key?

my options for both are

allow all applications to access this item
confirm before allowing access, with a suboption to require the keychain password

I think the public and private defaults are different..?

# ? Jul 16, 2019 01:58

Kobayashi: Aug 13, 2004; by Nyc_Tattoo

Toast Museum posted:

I had the same thought. If it's worth to you, there's apparently an app called Choosy that does this.

This is exactly what I was looking for, apparently has a 45 day trial. Works great so far.

# ? Jul 16, 2019 17:50

SUNKOS: Jun 4, 2016

My father is unable to log into his Mac with what he insists is the correct password. The OS is High Sierra according to him and he's using an old Mac Mini that he bought off eBay a couple of years ago with upgraded storage and such. He said the issue started today where the computer went into the normal power save mode with the screensaver, but when he went to use it his password no longer worked. I asked if he'd opened any email attachments recently or had any unusual behavior and he said no, it was working normally but now for whatever reason his password doesn't work.

I had a quick look and the computer seems to startup fine but after the white screen with the Apple logo and a bar filling as it loads, it goes to a plain black screen with the mouse cursor appearing in the top left. The entire screen is black however. Pressing the spacebar creates a sound (a stereotypical error-ish sound is best way I can describe it) but there's nothing to click on and nowhere to type. He showed me that if he presses escape it actually brings up the standard login screen that he's used to, but entering his password doesn't work, it says it's wrong.

I've no idea what's happened or is happening but it's on me to try and fix it so I wondered if anyone here had any advice or might know what's up? Do I need to somehow do a factory reset and wipe everything or is there a possibility he might be able to get back in? If wipe is the only option, how do I go about doing this? I'm a little paranoid about breaking the thing since he says it was a modified one with the HDD and memory upgraded and I'm worried it might not recognize the stuff and be completely busted if I do that, I don't know what brand of HDD or even what capacity it is, same for the memory, he's just stuck unable to login and apparently his old passwords don't work either. Something doesn't seem right with that black screen however and having to hit escape to get to the login page, which has me suspect something's been compromised and the password was changed but I can only go by what he's said and what I saw happen when it was switched on.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 14:44

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

SUNKOS posted:

My father is unable to log into his Mac with what he insists is the correct password. The OS is High Sierra according to him and he's using an old Mac Mini that he bought off eBay a couple of years ago with upgraded storage and such. He said the issue started today where the computer went into the normal power save mode with the screensaver, but when he went to use it his password no longer worked. I asked if he'd opened any email attachments recently or had any unusual behavior and he said no, it was working normally but now for whatever reason his password doesn't work.

I had a quick look and the computer seems to startup fine but after the white screen with the Apple logo and a bar filling as it loads, it goes to a plain black screen with the mouse cursor appearing in the top left. The entire screen is black however. Pressing the spacebar creates a sound (a stereotypical error-ish sound is best way I can describe it) but there's nothing to click on and nowhere to type. He showed me that if he presses escape it actually brings up the standard login screen that he's used to, but entering his password doesn't work, it says it's wrong.

I've no idea what's happened or is happening but it's on me to try and fix it so I wondered if anyone here had any advice or might know what's up? Do I need to somehow do a factory reset and wipe everything or is there a possibility he might be able to get back in? If wipe is the only option, how do I go about doing this? I'm a little paranoid about breaking the thing since he says it was a modified one with the HDD and memory upgraded and I'm worried it might not recognize the stuff and be completely busted if I do that, I don't know what brand of HDD or even what capacity it is, same for the memory, he's just stuck unable to login and apparently his old passwords don't work either. Something doesn't seem right with that black screen however and having to hit escape to get to the login page, which has me suspect something's been compromised and the password was changed but I can only go by what he's said and what I saw happen when it was switched on.

Turn off the computer. Turn it on and hold cmd+r until a bios screen pops up. Click utilities in the menu bar and then terminal. Enter resetpassword. Close the terminal, select the user you need to change and change its password. Reset and login.

When you get in, have your father connect his Apple ID https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204053

# ? Jul 18, 2019 19:14

SUNKOS: Jun 4, 2016

tuyop posted:

Turn off the computer. Turn it on and hold cmd+r until a bios screen pops up. Click utilities in the menu bar and then terminal. Enter resetpassword. Close the terminal, select the user you need to change and change its password. Reset and login.

When you get in, have your father connect his Apple ID https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204053

Thanks for the help. It appears to have partially worked? I was able to reset the password for the user but when the Mac was reset it brought up the screen with the blurred wallpaper but there was no user to select, just two fields to enter information with the first being 'name' and the second being 'password'. I entered my father's name and the password I'd reset things to but the box shook and rejected it, and there appeared to be no way of progressing or trying to select a user or anything so I had to just power off. Any ideas what this might be? Grateful for the help since it seems like it's very close to being fixed, I'm just baffled as to why it's asking for a name and password and the user isn't there at all like it was before.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 19:59

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

SUNKOS posted:

Thanks for the help. It appears to have partially worked? I was able to reset the password for the user but when the Mac was reset it brought up the screen with the blurred wallpaper but there was no user to select, just two fields to enter information with the first being 'name' and the second being 'password'. I entered my father's name and the password I'd reset things to but the box shook and rejected it, and there appeared to be no way of progressing or trying to select a user or anything so I had to just power off. Any ideas what this might be? Grateful for the help since it seems like it's very close to being fixed, I'm just baffled as to why it's asking for a name and password and the user isn't there at all like it was before.

Try the solutions provided here. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/151121/cannot-find-users-on-login-screen-only-guest-login-available

# ? Jul 18, 2019 20:22

SUNKOS: Jun 4, 2016

Thanks. Option & right arrow doesn't do anything at all. I went back through your original steps and the user account is still there because I changed the password again and after reset it was back to what you said was the guest login screen so I'm a little stumped. I looked into the single user mode thing but that seems for advanced users comfortable with Unix which I'm not. It looks like the only option is recovery and reinstalling the OS? I see that it's available from the same startup keys I used to change the password but since the internals have been changed, is there a chance this could brick the system since it will be expecting the original hardware and won't have drivers for whatever replaced it, or is it still safe? I peeked at disk utility and noted the storage space was only 250GB-ish but my father said it was a lot more than that, so I don't know if/how it's been partitioned or what. He said he's okay with losing everything and starting from scratch because he didn't have much on there anyways, he just wants to be able to access his emails and online banking etc. so if I can manage a fresh OS install without anything freaking out and it recognizing the full size of the HDD that would be great. Do I need to wipe everything first or just jump right into reinstalling? My main worry is it installs onto this 250GB partition and all the other space is lost.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 21:13

tuyop: Sep 15, 2006; Every second that we're not growing BASIL is a second wasted; Fun Shoe

SUNKOS posted:

Thanks. Option & right arrow doesn't do anything at all. I went back through your original steps and the user account is still there because I changed the password again and after reset it was back to what you said was the guest login screen so I'm a little stumped. I looked into the single user mode thing but that seems for advanced users comfortable with Unix which I'm not. It looks like the only option is recovery and reinstalling the OS? I see that it's available from the same startup keys I used to change the password but since the internals have been changed, is there a chance this could brick the system since it will be expecting the original hardware and won't have drivers for whatever replaced it, or is it still safe? I peeked at disk utility and noted the storage space was only 250GB-ish but my father said it was a lot more than that, so I don't know if/how it's been partitioned or what. He said he's okay with losing everything and starting from scratch because he didn't have much on there anyways, he just wants to be able to access his emails and online banking etc. so if I can manage a fresh OS install without anything freaking out and it recognizing the full size of the HDD that would be great. Do I need to wipe everything first or just jump right into reinstalling? My main worry is it installs onto this 250GB partition and all the other space is lost.

Did you try this in the cmd+r terminal?

code:

 defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow SHOWFULLNAME -bool yes

# ? Jul 18, 2019 21:18

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Sure you're getting the name right when you're typing it in? Like there's a long name and short name, I think the latter is the same as the home folder name, which you should be able to find and check by navigating through with Terminal when booted up from the recovery volume.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 21:58

SUNKOS: Jun 4, 2016

tuyop posted:

Did you try this in the cmd+r terminal?
code:
 defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow SHOWFULLNAME -bool yes

Yeah, it didn't do anything. No acknowledgement that something happened in terminal and the login screen was the same after restart.

japtor posted:

Sure you're getting the name right when you're typing it in? Like there's a long name and short name, I think the latter is the same as the home folder name, which you should be able to find and check by navigating through with Terminal when booted up from the recovery volume.

Thanks for this but I have no idea how to do that. Are you saying I could find the correct entry for the name field of the weird login page via terminal? The issue seems to be with the password box, though. I'm just utterly lost with it all, to be honest.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 22:11

Last Chance: Dec 31, 2004

SUNKOS posted:

Yeah, it didn't do anything. No acknowledgement that something happened in terminal and the login screen was the same after restart.

Thanks for this but I have no idea how to do that. Are you saying I could find the correct entry for the name field of the weird login page via terminal? The issue seems to be with the password box, though. I'm just utterly lost with it all, to be honest.

Yeah in terminal you should just be able to do:

code:

ls /Users/

And see the username in question that should go in the username field

# ? Jul 18, 2019 22:27

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

SUNKOS posted:

Thanks for this but I have no idea how to do that. Are you saying I could find the correct entry for the name field of the weird login page via terminal? The issue seems to be with the password box, though. I'm just utterly lost with it all, to be honest.

Well you might be using the correct name, just trying to make sure though. And I kinda have to go off memory here cause the recovery terminal's relative paths will be different.

Side note - will that defaults write command work from the recovery terminal? It seems like it'd be doing the command to the recovery partition's preferences, not the actual boot drive, which is why it might not be having any effect.

Anyway to navigate around to find the user folder, try this:

code:

ls /Volumes/
(This should show whatever boot drive is named here,
like "Dad's Computer" for this example)

cd /Volumes/Dad (just hit tab key here to autocomplete,
it'll take care of spaces/weird characters in the name if there's any)

cd Users

ls

(This should show the user home folders, one of which should be your dad's)

Fake edit, re: above post, just doing "ls /Users/" won't work in the recovery terminal cause it'll just list the recovery partition's Users folder cause that's the relative root when you're booted in recovery. Gotta get the whole path to the now other volume's Users folder.

Real edit: wow that's some word salad there reading it again in the quote below :v:

japtor fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Jul 18, 2019

# ? Jul 18, 2019 22:34

Last Chance: Dec 31, 2004

japtor posted:

Fake edit, re: above post, just doing "ls /Users/" won't work in the recovery terminal cause it'll just list the recovery partition's Users folder cause that's the relative root when you're booted in recovery. Gotta get the whole path to the now other volume's Users folder.

oops yeah, I hadn't been following the thread

# ? Jul 18, 2019 22:39

benisntfunny: Dec 2, 2004; I'm Perfect.

SUNKOS posted:

Thanks for the help. It appears to have partially worked? I was able to reset the password for the user but when the Mac was reset it brought up the screen with the blurred wallpaper but there was no user to select, just two fields to enter information with the first being 'name' and the second being 'password'. I entered my father's name and the password I'd reset things to but the box shook and rejected it, and there appeared to be no way of progressing or trying to select a user or anything so I had to just power off. Any ideas what this might be? Grateful for the help since it seems like it's very close to being fixed, I'm just baffled as to why it's asking for a name and password and the user isn't there at all like it was before.

Wish you luck. This happened on my iMac Pro and not myself (trying everything people have posted here) or Apple could fix it. They then attempted to wipe my machine at the store and send me home and the drive went missing entirely. I ended up having to get a whole new Mac.

# ? Jul 20, 2019 05:07

PRADA SLUT: Mar 14, 2006; Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

I need a duplicate detector for videos, but one that works based off the video stream, not the exact file (eg, the hash).

When I finish working with a video, I transcode the raw footage, store it, and wipe the raws. However, I usually have hundreds of files to work with and want a quick way to figure out if I've missed anything. Basically, a duplicate detector that looks at the video footage itself and figures out if two files have the same content (though one original, one transcoded). Is this A Thing?

Alternately, is there a way to get Compressor to save a batch job in between sessions? It's hundreds of hours of transcoding and if I stop compressor or close it or whatever it wipes my entire queue and I have to figure out where I was and put the files back in and start it again. That's my concern when I miss something.

# ? Jul 22, 2019 18:59

Binary Badger: Oct 11, 2005; Trolling Link for a decade

macOS 10.14.6 is out the door :siren:

Apple posted:

The macOS Mojave 10.14.6 update improves the stability and reliability of your Mac, and is recommended for all users.
This update:
- Makes downloaded issues available in the My Magazines section of Apple News+, both online and offline
- Adds all publications in Apple News+, including newspapers, to the catalog at the top of the News+ feed
- Adds the ability to clear downloaded magazine issues in Apple News+ by selecting History > Clear > Clear All
- Addresses an issue which prevents creation of a new Boot Camp partition on iMac and Mac mini with Fusion Drive
- Resolves an issue that may cause a hang during a restart
- Resolves a graphics issue that may occur when waking from sleep
- Fixes an issue that may cause fullscreen video to appear black on Mac mini
- Improves file sharing reliability over SMB

# ? Jul 22, 2019 21:01

stevewm: May 10, 2005

Binary Badger posted:

macOS 10.14.6 is out the door

- Improves file sharing reliability over SMB

Ha! How long have they been trying at this?

# ? Jul 22, 2019 21:10

Binary Badger: Oct 11, 2005; Trolling Link for a decade

Here's the link to the combo update for 10.14.6:

https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2010?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

# ? Jul 22, 2019 23:50

Matt Zerella: Oct 7, 2002; Norris'es are back baby. It's good again. Awoouu (fox Howl)

I got my new MBP today. I use notepad++ a ton at work and at home. Any recommended OSX equivalents?

We also use SecureCRT (I'm a Linux admin/engineer) and I really love the session management but I can't install it on my home machine. Any decent terminal recommendations with good session management?

# ? Jul 23, 2019 23:51

Grassy Knowles: Apr 4, 2003; "The original Terminator was a gritty fucking AMAZING piece of sci-fi. Gritty fucking rock-hard MURDER!"

japtor posted:

If something doesn�t exist for this, all I can think of is making a separate app that acts as a browser (so can be set as default) that accepts URLs then just passes on to whatever browser you pick.

I use a free app called BrowserChooserX available as a homebrew cask fwiw

# ? Jul 23, 2019 23:59

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 9, 2024 05:42

Toast Museum: Dec 3, 2005; 30% Iron Chef

Matt Zerella posted:

I got my new MBP today. I use notepad++ a ton at work and at home. Any recommended OSX equivalents?

I've come to prefer Visual Studio Code over Notepad++ on Windows, and it's cross-platform.

# ? Jul 23, 2019 23:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > macOS and Mac Software: We still exist!

«‹›1098 »