Greetings ! You may be used to a much thick head of hair of haircloth use up the Mac 911 seat , but as you may have heard , oneMr . Chris Breenhas gone on to fleeceable pastures as an orchardman , and I ’ve been knock to take your doubt .
I pop out using a Mac in 1985 and never arrest . I even own a G4 Cube . My first smartphone was the original iPhone ; my current , an iPhone 6 . ( Is it my last ? As they say in Maine : Not yet . ) Your problems are mine , and I feel your pain , and want your interrogative .
you could email thing that baffle you or need solving tomac911@macworld.com , twinge them at me ( if brief)@glennf , or call 206–337–5833 and go forth a voice mail message . ( We ’ll be experimenting with some audio recording in the future tense , and may put your question “ on the air . ” )
Now on to this week ’s travail .
Missing Wi-Fi adapter
Apple has build in a Wi - Fi adapter in most models of Macs for a decade , and the continue ones for several twelvemonth . Thus it was a surprise to tweeter Jeremy when his Mac , after a clangoring , display an X in the Wi - Fi computer menu which , when click , revealed a gray recording label : “ Wi - Fi : No hardware establish . ”
Jeremy ’s computing machine ca n’t find its Wi - Fi adapter .
Well , it was just there a minute ago ! I advised Jeremy to restart andreset the NVRAM(once calledPRAM ) , in which a number of charge - up parameters are held and sometimes get defile ; and then , failing that , step up toresetting the System Management Controller ( SMC ) . The SMC reset did it .
I ’ve heard in the yesteryear from other users that they ’ve seen this trouble when their Wi - Fi transcriber has become flaky , and they at last put back it ( if under its original warrant or extended AppleCare ) , or buy a USB Wi - Fi adapter , some of which occur with Mac OS X drivers .
In Apple ’s give-and-take forums , some users suggest downgrading to an earlier variant of Mac OS X and then upgrading again , or reinstalling OS X , both of which should be last resorts . ( Seeour step - by - dance step guide to installing Yosemite ; just do n’t do a clean install . )
Dark matter filling space
It turns out that astrophysicist have a pretty good approximation of how much sorry matter there is in the macrocosm and some speculations about what it might be made of , even though it ca n’t be measured straight . It is not , however , fill your oculus sinister ex kick drive or your iPhone or iPad ’s storage in the “ Other ” family . That cause rest murky , and reader Jeneva save in to ask what ’s up with that .
I ’ve on a regular basis experienced a inauguration drive ’s free space shrink from 30 GB to 5 GB with operating system X 10.10 ( Yosemite ) , and at times with 10.9 ( Mavericks ) . Later updates to Yosemite seem to have slowed the tread at which this come .
Mac OS X and various Apple and third - party apps write impermanent files and cache files to harrow . Temporary files are intended to be just that : they ’re written during some kind of big copy or move operation , where the original file should n’t be delete until the new one is created . ( Just likeStar Trek ’s teleporter , “ moving ” a Indian file just copies it to a novel locating and put down the original . )
These temporary filing cabinet are sometimes orphaned : a programme crashes or permissions are wonky , or there ’s a glitch that go to delete files when they ’re no longer demand . On occasion , I ’ll find an errant file with a datestamp from a 10 ago ! Sadly , they do n’t increase in value over time .
Software like that from Apple that hold up automatic reposition of previous versions of the same file can make full outer space like harebrained , too , and that space is only reform when files are deleted . There ’s no way to even those version ; it requires body of work in the Terminal and then careful checking . One colleague wrote in to say the versions folder , a concealed one name .DocumentRevisions - V100 , was take 192.5 GB of her 250 GB drive .
cache are a different issue . These are actively used by package to store turn and pieces that the apps need to have readily available and ca n’t stack away in memory . Rebooting my Yosemite computers often frees up 15 to 25 GB of this dark entrepot , very likely because OS X has create immense caches that it ca n’t seem to unwrap .
Clear your Dropbox memory cache to free up space .
Dropbox is another potential perpetrator , if you ’re a regular user . While it only caches the last three days of Indian file conveyance locally , demote previous deleted files and previous versions to its website , three days can add up . The company offerssimple instructionsto edit its cache files . Checking just now , I had 2.5 GB of Dropbox cache !
Another rough-cut reason ? sure-enough iTunes backups of iOS gimmick . If you still or ever practice iTunes to create a backing of your earpiece or lozenge , every manual backup is retained forever and a day , and can represent G of old data . Launch iTunes , choose iTunes > Preferences , chatter Devices , and you could see these sr. files . Select and click Delete Backup one at a time to free up storage if you ’re sure those are n’t current .
If you ’d care to get more insight into what ’s on your drive , WhatSize($30 , free trial with some features disenable ) will probe your ride , and display cache , temporary worker file cabinet , duplicates , and more , while also offering tools to clean things up .
iOS offers fewer path to gain sixth sense into its Other category , that lump occupied by things besides music , apps , and describe items . Other can also include caches , such as the full cached download of a digital movie , even after you ’ve deleted the file , and other detritus .
If this is a persistent problem that causes you to have to dump apps and media files while you stare longingly at 5 GB identified as Other , you canback up and reinstate your phone . This is a trouble , no question about it , but it look to be the only consistent way to get that space back .
Make the accompaniment manually via iTunes for the speediest recovery . Also , think back to check Encrypt iPhone / iPad Backup to retain most of your passwords , so you do n’t have to re - enter them after the gimmick is restored .
Have a question of your own ? flatten a contrast tomac911@macworld.com .
