When searching for mail in Mail.app with a Gmail account, every instance of the mail shows up with every Gmail label, especially in the Bin label, since Apple mail autosaves drafts as you go along, there can be 50 instances of a single mail just in the Bin folder. This makes searching impossible. So I'm trying to turn off those labels in Gmail but no success so far. I have disabled "Show in IMAP" option in the Gmail label settings for all those labels then deleted all the cached items in ~/Library/Mail/V2 and restarted Mail.app but that didn't do the trick.

I upgraded my iMac Late 2013 to Catalina. When I login through Anydesk or Chrome Remote Desktop I see my desktop for a split second and then im presented with the lock screen again. While Anydesk is open, I can press 'switch user' in CRD which then shows me my screensaver. Then if I start moving around the screen saver eventually quits and I can use my desktop in CRD, while anydesk still sees the switch user screen (the available users and the sleep/restart/shut down options) After a fresh reboot I was on with CRD & Anydesk. I closed CRD, and I was back to the starting issue where the screen just locks and using CRD at same time I was able to login. Sometime later I ended up with total lockout - neither Anydesk or CRD will connect even though I know the Mac is online running scripts. Two remote connections, same iMac: I've also now put in Teamviewer and I have the same issue - as soon as I type my password it locks on me. It sems like something is locking the cursor because with every letter I type the password field loses focus and I have to click again and quickly type the next letter. These are the relevant options I can think of: - Energy Saver: Turn display off after 10 min, prevent auto sleep when display off, put disks to sleep when possible, wake for network, auto start on power failure, enable power nap. - Screen Saver: Start after Never - Amphetamine: Launch at login, start session when launch or waking sleep, indefinite duration, allow display sleep, (no screen saver, no forced sleep). Lock screen after 15 min inactivity, allow display sleep when screen locked.

I am using macOS 10.14.6 and docker info shows me that the docker daemon is not running. How do I start the docker daemon from terminal? I have not found any information on doing so anywhere. On Linux you do something like sudo service docker stop, but this is incompatible with MacOS.

I have an old magic keyboard that still works. I'm using it connected to my m1 16-inch macbook pro. However, F5 and F6 on the macbook pro keyboard is defined as Diction and "Do Not Disturb", while it is blank on the magic keyboard. How can I modify the behavior of these function keys on the magic keyboard so that it resembles that of the internal keyboard?

The following command entered in Terminal will enable the Debug menu in iCal (Lion): defaults write com.apple.iCal IncludeDebugMenu YES I would like to accomplish the same thing in Calendar (Mountain Lion).

I'm looking for suggestions as to the cause / solution to a spinning beachball every time I try and copy/paste in Excel. This happens more on some spreadsheets, but is happening in one I use frequently which is only 700 KB. I am using **Office 365**, and my MBP (Mac Book Pro) is 2018 (2.6 GHz i7, 32 GB RAM), running Catalina. It does however seem independent of device, as I recreated it on my partners MacBook Air (2011, 2.0 GHz i7, 8 GB RAM) running High Sierra. The desired file is stored locally but mirrored in iCloud). I am aware that was a problem in Office 2011 for Mac, but my online search hasn't found posts with this problem recently. I have tried an older suggested workaround of copy/pasting a blank cell in a blank spreadsheet before opening the desired file as suggested at https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/249326/excel-2011-copy-and-paste-beachball-hang-freeze-issue I have also tested with desired file mirrored on a different cloud, and also just saved locally without any cloud mirroring, - all have similar problems. Thanks @pion for the specific detailed advice to capture what my system is doing when it happens. This is available on Github, spindump.txt .

I want to run a script based on one line in launchctl list output. I know there are ways to simplify this output using awk sed grep etc. The question is, is there a native or non-native tool for parsing this output? (It would be helpful if I just knew the name of the output format so I could do a search for that) launchctl list outputs in this format:

% sudo launchctl list com.privateinternetaccess.vpn.daemon 
Password:
{
	"LimitLoadToSessionType" = "System";
	"Label" = "com.privateinternetaccess.vpn.daemon";
	"OnDemand" = false;
	"LastExitStatus" = 0;
	"PID" = 35114;
	"Program" = "/Applications/Private Internet Access.app/Contents/MacOS/pia-daemon";
	"ProgramArguments" = (
		"/Applications/Private Internet Access.app/Contents/MacOS/pia-daemon";
	);
};

Essentially this is a semi-colon delimited list inside of curly brackets - sorry don't know the name of this output format. Right now I am getting by with these commands to get the PID, but as stated I would like to use tools specifically for this output format if they exist.

% sudo launchctl list com.privateinternetaccess.vpn.daemon  | grep PID | egrep -o  -e '[0-9]{1,}'
35114

My intention is to run a script based on whether this daemon is currently active or not. My initial thought was to get the PID and use that to determine if it was running as I understand a running daemon has a PID and otherwise it does not. Using an if...fi statement should do the trick.

Last night I was driving home and said "hey siri, play metric". Metric is a local band and I have one of their albums on my iPhone. Siri responded by subscribing me to Apple Music and playing the songs from there. I have noticed similar things in the past. I will ask it to play an artist or album that I have on my phone, and it previously would tell me I don't have Apple Music and would not play it. Is there some way to turn this off, or some magic phrase I can use to tell it to look only in my local library? I do not have Apple Music and will never subscribe, I simply want to listen to the (large amount) of music I already have.

How do i stop this smoothing option from occuring automatically after every free hand sketch because i have to continuously remove the smoothing after every line drawn. Thanks in advance.

I have two displays connected to my Mac. On both displays, I open Terminal in full-screen mode. Let's say display B is currently active. I then use Command+Tab to switch to Chrome, which is open on display A. So therefore, display A moves from Terminal to Chrome. At some point later on, I want to switch back to Terminal on display A. **I notice that if the mouse is present in display B, even when display A is the active display, Ctrl+ArrowKey gets applied to display B rather than display A.** Is there any way to change this behavior so that Ctrl+ArrowKey gets applied to the active display?

MacOS Ventura 13.3 but I have had some form of this problem on and off for a couple years. I have a simple workflow that types the current date in ISO 8601 format, it is a single AppleScript action like tell application "System Events"...keystroke $DATE essentially. It breaks, often, with an error saying the workflow is "unable to send keystrokes". Perhaps something resets on OS upgrades, I'm not sure, but I wish I better understood the steps necessary to fix it. I gave Automator, AppleScript Utility, and the workflow itself the Accessibility permission "allow the applications below to control your computer"—as [this answer says](https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/401262/67860)—but that alone does not seem sufficient (but might be necessary?). I don't see any relevant keyboard settings. I suspect some or all of these apps also need to be on the Settings > Privacy & Security > Automation list...except there is no way to add (or remove, for that matter) apps to that list. There is no "plus" button and dragging an app onto the list does nothing. I've read here and in Apple's forums some suggestions that an app is supposed to request this permission the first time it needs it and to add an app to the list you should reinstall it. A fine solution...but you cannot reinstall Automator _or_ AppleScript Utility, they cannot be deleted. The workflow itself also does not trigger a prompt for this permission, as far as I can tell, and I doubt giving it access would be enough. **How is one supposed to add applications to the Automation list?** Is there a CLI to this list?

I had a dozen or so windows with some tabs open in Finder for a long time. Today I find out it's randomly lost them all. Is there a way to restore the open windows/tabs using a Time Machine backup? Thanks! EDIT: I tried restoring "com.apple.finder.plist" from /Users/[User]/Library/Preferences but it doesn't work. I don't think the system is letting me do this properly while Finder is running. Is there a way to keep it killed while I swap the file? Or how could I do this from recovery? Does this file even store the open folders?

I recently upgraded my older iMac 2015 to macOS 12. Now I noticed the Music App does not save any settings I made while using Music, i.e. if I change the width of the left column this setting is lost when closing Music, the column is the same size as at last start. Or the last selected section/playlist will be lost too, Music starts at the same point every time on open. I assume there is a settings file or database where all those settings will be saved on closing the app, but I am not able to find this file. Is there anything I can do to have Music save the settings?

I am looking to record my iPhone screen with visible indicators of where I tap the screen, like a dot or ripple effect. The indicators would make it easier for recording tutorials or demonstrations. I know how to use the built in screen recording on iOS, but it doesn't display touch inputs by default. Is there some way to enable this?

I'm experiencing an issue on my MacBook Air (macOS 15.1) where I can't log into Messages or FaceTime. Whenever I try, I just get an endless spinning wheel. I've already tried the following troubleshooting steps without success: Resetting NVRAM Changing networks Logging in and out of iCloud Force quitting the apps Restarting my computer. Has anyone encountered this before or found a solution?

Is there a way to switch off voice input for Whatsapp on iPhone? I have switched off Siri but Whatsapp still allows voice input. A friend has created voice chats accidentally because she presses the microphone accidentally.

I'm looking for a method to record the video without actually filming the device. Does such a method exist?

I would like to be able to change the output device sometimes, for example to switch between headphones and speakers, without having to use the mouse. I've figured out how to focus the 'status menu' area (top-right of screen) with a keyboard shortcut (default is Ctrl+Fn+F8), and can select the sound menu. But when I try to select items in that menu, pressing the arrow keys will only alter the volume (even with modifiers like Cmd or Alt). Even page up/page down! How can I access the rest of the menu with the keyboard and change the output device?

On Tuesday, July 8, 2025 something very weird happened to my iPhone 16 on T-Mobile with an eSIM in the U.S.; personal device. Sharing the just in case anyone else experiences similar.

 This all happened on an iPhone 16 (MYD33LL/A) running iOS 18.5. At around 7:00pm, I was looking at my iPhone home screen and noticed that the temperatures my weather app on my iPhone 16 (running iOS 18.5) suddenly changed from Fahrenheit (U.S. region) to Celsius. Like it was 80-90F and the app was showing temperatures that were 20-30C. Very odd because I didn’t do anything that would cause that. *** **PS**: I didn’t receive any SMS messages, emails or notifications of anything about anything. I simply saw temperatures in Celsius and my “Language & Region” set to “world” which is not a region that is offered by Apple during the initial iPhone setup or even afterwards in “Settings -> General > Language & Region.” Very odd. **PPS**: No other Apple device that is associated with the iPhone Apple ID was affected. Two-factor authentication for the Apple ID is set, its password hasn’t been changed but again, two-factor authentication is set. **PPPS**: I just sent an email to product-security@apple.com that is basically a condensed version of this post just in case this is a novel (aka: zero-day) exploit.

My host's IP address changes sometimes, I can't help on it. So, I change the entry in /etc/hosts:

192.168.1.106   myhost

I can *ping* it:

PING myhost (192.168.1.106): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.106: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=66.849 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.106: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=7.315 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.106: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=13.457 ms

I can simply *ssh* to it with IP address. But I can not *ssh* with host name:

$ ssh -vvvv myhost
OpenSSH_9.9p2, LibreSSL 3.3.6
debug1: Reading configuration data /Users/ern0/.ssh/config
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 21: include /etc/ssh/ssh_config.d/* matched no files
debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 54: Applying options for *
debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 58: Applying options for *
debug3: expanded UserKnownHostsFile '~/.ssh/known_hosts' -> '/Users/ern0/.ssh/known_hosts'
debug3: expanded UserKnownHostsFile '~/.ssh/known_hosts2' -> '/Users/ern0/.ssh/known_hosts2'
debug1: Authenticator provider $SSH_SK_PROVIDER did not resolve; disabling
debug3: channel_clear_timeouts: clearing
debug1: Connecting to myhost port 22.
ssh: Could not resolve hostname myhost: nodename nor servname provided, or not known

I found no useful information in verbose *ssh* output. I may add entry in ~/.ssh/config to specify the IP address, but I think, /etc/hosts should do the job. I am using latest MacOS:

$ uname -a
Darwin touchbar.local 24.5.0 Darwin Kernel Version 24.5.0: Tue Apr 22 19:48:46 PDT 2025; root:xnu-11417.121.6~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T8103 arm64 arm Darwin

Does *ssh* have some hidden mechanism I don't know?