HCS: Problem-solving by Apple Certified Professionals

For years, you’ve used the App Store app to install operating system and app updates on your Mac. That’s still true for apps, but with macOS 10.14 Mojave, Apple moved operating system updates to the new Software Update preference pane, which replaces the old App Store preference pane. Open System Preferences > Software Update to check your version of macOS and access available updates—there will be an Update Now button to click. You should also visit this pane to tell your Mac how to best handle system and app updates: Don’t select “Automatically keep my Mac up to date” because updates might come at an inconvenient time for you. Instead, click Advanced and then select “Check for updates” and “Install system data files and security updates”—they’re important. Unless you’re low on drive space, selecting “Download new updates when available” is fine, since that will make updating faster. However, keep “Install macOS updates” and “Install app updates from the App Store” off so you can choose when to update.

Touch ID lets users register up to five fingers that can unlock an iPhone, which has long been a boon for those who share access to their iPhone with trusted family members. However, users of the iPhone X haven’t been able to give a second person Face ID-based access, forcing those people to wait for Face ID to fail and then tap in a passcode manually. iOS 12 lifts that limitation, allowing a second person to register their face with Face ID on the iPhone X and the new iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max. To set this up, go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode. Enter your passcode and tap Set Up an Alternate Appearance. Then give your iPhone to the person who should have access and have them follow the simple setup directions.

Make sure the user shows up in the FileVault users list.  We will need the UUID for the last step.


sudo fdesetup list

bob,68C6BCDD-9F15-4449-B38D-63E2571ECD9F


Find the Macintosh HD ( or whatever your boot disk name is ) You will need the IDENTIFIER for the next step.

diskutil list

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *41.9 GB    disk0

   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1

   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk1         41.7 GB    disk0s2


/dev/disk1 (synthesized):

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +41.7 GB    disk1

                                 Physical Store disk0s2

   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            11.9 GB    disk1s1

   2:                APFS Volume Preboot                 44.2 MB    disk1s2

   3:                APFS Volume Recovery                509.6 MB   disk1s3


Run this command to sync the FileVault and login passwords.  You MUST know the old password.  It will NOT work without the users old password.  (disk1s1 is the identifier and 68C6BCDD-9F15-4449-B38D-63E2571ECD9F is the UUID)

sudo diskutil apfs changePassphrase disk1s1 -user 68C6BCDD-9F15-4449-B38D-63E2571ECD9F

Old passphrase for user 68C6BCDD-9F15-4449-B38D-63E2571ECD9F:

New passphrase:

Repeat new passphrase:

Changing passphrase for cryptographic user 68C6BCDD-9F15-4449-B38D-63E2571ECD9F on APFS Volume disk1s1

Passphrase changed successfully

Restart your Mac.  The Filevault and Login passwords will now be in sync.

Have you found yourself composing an email message on your Mac while staring glumly at the receipt or document you need to scan and attach to the message? Adding that scan to the message isn’t impossible, but until macOS 10.14 Mojave, it hasn’t necessarily been easy.

It’s super simple now, thanks to a new Mojave feature called Continuity Camera. It lets you take pictures or scan documents with an iPhone or iPad running iOS 12 and have those images show up immediately on the Mac, either in a document or on the Desktop.

You can use the mdls -raw command to view the metadata for files on your Mac.

Example: mdls -raw /pathToYourFile

If a file was sent to you via airdrop, that file will have metadata that contains "com.apple.AirDrop". All you need to do to see all files that were sent to your Mac Computer via airdrop is run the mdfind command and search for "com.apple.AirDrop".

Example: mdfind com.apple.AirDrop

You can also use the mdfind command to search in a specific directory for certain file types.