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Repairing Home folder permissions: a mystery

Once, you could run diskutil to ‘fix’ broken permissions in your Home folder, then it was replaced by repairHomePermissions in Recovery. Apple no longer documents this, but it’s still there. Should you use it?

November 18, 2022 Macs, Technology

Cryptex: how a custom iPhone is changing macOS updates

Expected in Ventura 13.1 is a new lightweight system for applying security patches. This article explains how it uses cryptexes, already being used in macOS 13.

November 16, 2022 Macs, Technology

What makes an external disk bootable?

This has changed greatly over the last few versions of macOS, and differs between different types of Mac. Here’s an outline.

November 12, 2022 Macs, Technology

Ventura’s updates have got faster for some

macOS 13.0.1 is the first small security update to Ventura, although it still seems large. What’s going on, and where are macOS updates heading?

November 11, 2022 Macs, Technology

What does SilentKnight check and why?

T T Read More

Short explanations of all the information reported in SilentKnight, and its command line equivalent silnite.

September 21, 2022 Macs, Technology

Does a macOS update change the Data volume?

macOS updates currently install to both System and Data volumes, although Apple claims the Data volume is unmounted during updating. Can an update cause problems with your Data volume, then?

September 3, 2022 Macs, Technology

An atlas of recovery and boot volumes: High Sierra to Monterey

From High Sierra’s four-volume group to macOS 12 on Apple silicon with three containers and 11 volumes, and both regular and fallback Recovery volumes.

August 19, 2022 Macs, Technology

Startup disk surgery in recent macOS: fixing bigger problems

When a startup disk is running short of space, needs a good clean up, or isn’t quite right, it’s tempting to try surgery. Here’s what you can get away with.

July 15, 2022 Macs, Technology

Explainer: macOS updaters

How macOS updaters have changed over the last decade, and why they’re far more reliable, but you can’t download a standalone updater any more.

March 19, 2022 Macs, Technology

Should you ever repair permissions?

We used to repair permissions of the system until SIP. After a short break, we often repaired them again, this time on preference files. Why did Apple cancel that? Should we still try it for fixing problems?

January 27, 2022 Macs, Technology

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