Westwind’s reference page.

Man Pagez or Man Pages

The X-Lab

Elevated Shell Shell as actual root user sudo su.

Alternatively, sudo -s gives you elevated permissions but your home is still your home. If you just want to change to an admin user in Terminal type su <admin username>.

Change user in shell: su <any-user-name> useful in Addigy malware clean-up

Spotlight:sudo mdutil -E /  Or, more specifically, sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/[DriveName]

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

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

flush DNS Cache

Turn off Mail preview of attachments – defaults write com.apple.mail DisableInlineAttachmentViewing -bool yes (or false)

Copy only email address in Mail – defaults write com.apple.mail AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard -bool false (or no)

List files in a directory and output the list  to a text file on the hard drive: ls > ~/list-of-files.txt

Disk Usage (this takes a while to run) sudo du -sh /* du man page: https://ss64.com/osx/du.html     Some of my favorite options:

-d depth Display an entry for all files and folders depth folders deep.
-h “Human-readable” output.
-k KB Display block counts in 1024-byte (1-Kbyte) blocks.
-m MB Display block counts in 1048576-byte (1-Mbyte) blocks.
-g GB Display block counts in 1073741824-byte (1-Gbyte) blocks.
-c Display a grand total.

Run Disksweeper as root:

sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper

Display Free Disk Space  df -hT hfs and its Man page: https://ss64.com/osx/df.html

MemTest cd /usr/bin, memtest all, CTRL C.

Enable Disk Utility’s debug menu  defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1  (change 1 to 0 to disable the debug menu)

chflags hidden /FilePath or chflags no hidden or SetFile -a V filename.txt or use a .

Clear font caches and databases: sudo atsutil databases -remove or get FontNuke

Diff lets you compare files or folders, diff file-1 file-2 or diff -rq folder-1 folder-2. Example, diff -rq [path to folder 1] [path to folder 2] > ~/Desktop/comparison.txt

This command will provide a nice list of files that occur in dirA but not in dirB, files that occur in dirB, but not in dirA, and files that differ between dirA and dirB. Pipe the output through grep to remove mention of uninteresting files, and sort to tidy it up, e.g.:
diff -qr dirA dirB | grep -v -e ‘DS_Store’ -e ‘Thumbs’ |
sort > diffs.txt

List of Defaults commands

MacAdmins’ favorites

touch ~/timestamp and then change some setting and then find -x / -newer ~/timestamp >~/changedfiles.txt” to generate a list of changed files, and store it in your home directory under the name “changedfiles.txt”. One of these changed files should be the settings file you need to locate.

Enter date XXXX and press Return  format: [mm][dd][HHMM][yy]

For installers with expired certs use Terminal to change date to 0201010116 This should work for Lion, Mountain Lion and Mavericks, 10.7, 10.8 and 10.9

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/12

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/11

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/15

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/11 –applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/10 –applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app

/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/9 –applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Mavericks.app –nointeraction

Mountain Lion OS X 10.8 http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/17/make-bootable-os-x-10-8-mountain-lion-usb-install-drive/

Lion and Mountain Lion and newer http://www.sallonoroff.co.uk/blog/2015/11/make-a-bootable-usb-drive-with-createinstallmedia/

Leopard and Snow Leopard https://www.macworld.com/article/2023548/dvd-less-snow-leopard-installation-on-older-mac.html

View All Third Party Kernel Extensions kextstat | grep -v com.apple

Unload Kernel Extension sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/ThirdPartyMystery.kext

Disable Time Machine local backups: sudo tmutil disablelocal

The application SomeApp.app can’t be opened. Superuser.com Question 898124  chmod +x SomeApp.app/Contents/MacOS/*

Sierra installer payload failed signature check, resolved by checking date and seeing that it was set to the year 2000. Within Terminal I typed ntpdate -u time.apple.com to resolve this issue.

Spotlight commands

Encrypted zip archive zip -ej ~/Desktop/file.zip ~/Desktop/Kitties.JPG

unzip file.zip -d ~/another/folder

Trigger Setup Assistant so you can create a new admin-level account. mount -uw / then rm /var/db/.applesetupdone

rm -rf some_dir r “recursive” -f “force” (suppress confirmation messages)

Disable Gatekeeper sudo spctl –master-disable

defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility DUDebugMenuEnabled 1 and then killall Finder then open Disk Utility, go to the Debug menu and select Show All Partitions

Time Machine tmutil info https://eclecticlight.co/2017/02/16/diagnosing-and-treating-time-machine-problems-in-terminal/

tmutil enable
tmutil disable
tmutil removedestination
tmutil startbackup
tmutil stopbackup
tmutil disablelocal
tmutil enablelocal
tmutil destinationinfo
tmutil listbackups
tmutil setdestination volume_name
tmutil calculatedrift backup_folder

tmutil addexclusion (By default this command is sticky which means the excluded item will be excluded even if it gets moved around on the Mac)
tmutil -p addexclusion ~/Downloads (The -p option makes the exclusion non-sticky)

sudo /usr/sbin/softwareupdate –ignore “macOS Catalina”

Watchman command line options

Watchman plugin names and slugs

Disabling Watchman plugins

Unlock files sudo chflags -R nouchg /PATH/TO/FILE

chflags = change flags on files/folders such as “locked”
-R = recursive or for everything and follow directories within the specified directory
nouchg = means the file can be changed
/PATH/ = of course is the path to the files you want to change.

Details here: https://superuser.com/questions/40749/command-to-unlock-locked-files-on-os-x

Password Protected Zip file

Type zip -er ~/Desktop/desiredfilename.zip and press the Space bar once.
Drag the file or files you want to share into the Terminal window.
Press Enter.
Enter your desired password and confirm it when prompted. Type carefully; you won’t see the characters you’re entering.

Secure document sharing using Wormhole or 1Password sharing.

“

Tim Hannon is a most professional and polite person. He brings years of tech skills to each client.
He is so very knowledgeable and efficient. He also keeps up with his customers to ensure they are backing up their computers.
I appreciate his expediency and care with my issues.”

Leslie Oldham
Langley, Nov 2023

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