MacOS

Table of Contents

Encrypted Disk Images

• Start Disk Utility
• Choose File -> New Image -> Blank Image
• Pick a maximum Size - take care with this, as your disk image won’t be able to grow larger than the value you set
• Format should be APFS (Case-sensitive) unless you’re running a spinning disk drive, in which case pick Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
• Encryption should be 256-bit AES unless that’s too slow for you
• Image Format should be either sparse bundle disk image or sparse disk image.
  • Use sparse disk image if you want to create a single, large, encrypted file
  • Use sparse bundle disk image if you want to create a lot of smaller, encrypted files - useful if you want to sync this image using something like OneDrive/Dropbox/whatever.

– via Apple Support and Eclectic Light Company

ImageMagick Commands

Convert pngs or heics to jpegs.

# Convert png to jpg, with 95% quality, while stripping any metadata
convert -strip -quality 95% <source>.png <destination>.jpg

# Convert HEIC to jpg, with 99% quality
mogrify -quality 99 -format jpg IMG_8672.HEIC
mogrify -quality 99 -format jpg *.HEIC

Disable Narrow Tabs in Safari 14

1. Make sure you have enabled website icons, via Preferences -> Tabs -> Show website icons in tabs
2. Quit Safari
3. Allow Full Disk Access for Terminal, via System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Full Disk Access
4. Open Terminal and run defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1
5. Start Safari
6. Open the new Debug menu and unselect Debug -> Tab Features -> Narrow Tabs
7. Enjoy the old, sane tab behavior
8. (Optional) You can disable the menu afterwards by running defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 0 in Terminal.
9. (Recommended) Remove Full Disk Access for Terminal via System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Full Disk Access

– via Reddit and Yuriy Shiryaev

Install ffmpeg with libvpx-vp9 support (for webm conversion)

Commands such as brew install ffmpeg --with-libvpx don’t work anymore, I’ve found that simply installing libvpx with Homebrew and then reinstalling ffmpeg will work.

brew install libvpx
brew uninstall ffmpeg
brew install ffmpeg

# Check available encoders
ffmpeg -encoders

Some info here too.

Convert gifs to mp4/webm

ffmpeg -i my-animation.gif my-animation.mp4

ffmpeg -i my-animation.gif -c vp9 -b:v 0 -crf 41 my-animation.webm

– via Google Developers

Exclude files from Alfred search

• Add the file/folder to System Preferences -> Spotlight -> Privacy and rebuild Alfred’s cache
• Add alfred:ignore to the Spotlight comments of the file/folder to ignore