OS X 10.7, Lion (Mac is dropped from the marketing name)
132
votes
106answers
48k views
What tiny thing in Lion makes you smile or has caught you off guard?
I would like to call for a place to list some little things that surprise you about Lion. There are so many articles and lists of all the new features with information overload, I would rather focus ...
108
votes
4answers
23k views
How can I disable animation when switching desktops in Lion?
I would very much like to disable the sliding animation that occurs when switching desktops via ctrl+→/← or ctrl+[number] in Lion. This was previously accomplished in previous versions ...
72
votes
15answers
46k views
Why is Git not found after installing OS X Lion?
I just upgraded to OS X Lion and now cannot initialize Git where it used to work fine:
$ git add .
-bash: git: command not found
I'm new to Git and to programming, so I'm sure it's a quick fix, ...
44
votes
2answers
4k views
Can I get back Snow-Leopard-like application hiding (Cmd-H) in Lion?
Till Mac OS X Snow Leopard, pressing ⌘+H while using an application did two things...
The application hid itself from view.
The application placed itself at the end of the ⌘+⇥ ...
43
votes
5answers
21k views
How do I run an app in Full Screen mode on OS X Lion on my second monitor?
How do I get an app to run in Full Screen mode on OS X Lion on my second monitor? It seems to be stuck on my first monitor, and I'd like to move it.
43
votes
3answers
5k views
Can I disable the Lion animation when switching to/from fullscreen apps?
In Lion there is an animation when switching to and from full screen applications. Full screen apps are great, especially on a 11" screen, but this animation is getting very annoying. Is there a way ...
42
votes
4answers
2k views
Where did the ~/Library folder go in Lion?
I just installed Lion, and I can't find the Library folder in my user folder.
Does the folder no longer exist? If it doesn't, where are my preferences? If it does, how do I get to it?
41
votes
12answers
4k views
How long can I expect my system to be unusable during an upgrade to OS X Lion?
I just downloaded Lion and am pretty eager to install it, but I can use every minute I have, so I'd rather not install it now if it means my system is unusable for 30+ minutes.
How long should I ...
41
votes
7answers
31k views
Why won't closing the lid sleep my MacBook Pro with external monitor attached after upgrading to Lion?
Up until yesterday (with Snow Leopard), closing the lid would cause my MacBook to sleep whether or not the external monitor was connected.
Since upgrading to Lion last night, closing the lid when the ...
35
votes
20answers
11k views
Know of any features or tips and tricks in OS X 10.7 (Lion)?
Kind of like this: Got any Mac OS X hidden features or nice tips & tricks? but specific to OS X Lion 10.7.x ONLY
Do you know any hidden or little-known nice feature of OS X 10.7 (Lion)? It ...
30
votes
4answers
30k views
How do I install GCC via Homebrew?
I am using Homebrew exclusively (i.e. I don’t, and won’t, use MacPorts or Fink). I also want to keep manual installations to a bare minimum.1
… But how can I install GCC?
First of all, I’ve of ...
29
votes
5answers
9k views
Is it possible to reorder spaces in Lion?
I would expect 'Mission Control' to allow me to drag spaces in a certain order (with the exception of the 'Dashboard' space), but this does not seem like an option.
This would be especially useful ...
29
votes
9answers
8k views
Can you disable rubber-band scrolling in OS X Lion?
In OS X Lion, is there a way to disable rubber-band scrolling? This is the bounce that occurs when the window is scrolled beyond the top or bottom edge.
I'm aware that non-apple input devices don't ...
28
votes
5answers
10k views
Is fine volume adjustment possible in OS X Lion?
On previous versions of Mac OS X pressing ⌥+⇧+volume+ would adjust the volume by quarter increments. This seems to have been removed in Lion.
Is there any way to do fine volume ...
26
votes
3answers
4k views
How to place Dictionary definitions higher up in spotlight results
I used to use spotlight fairly frequently to quickly look up words in a dictionary. With Lion, I've noticed that my dictionary results have dropped down much lower in the list of results:
I'd like ...
26
votes
3answers
8k views
Can I use the new Lion OS X license on two machines, or do I have to buy one for each?
I have 2 macbooks (the unibody and the one before that). Do I need to buy two licenses or can I just use one license for both machines?
26
votes
5answers
5k views
How can I use iCloud to sync my contacts, while also syncing my contacts with Google?
If you have Google contact syncing enabled in 10.7.1 or earlier, then upgrade to 10.7.2 and try to enable iCloud contact syncing, you will see the following dialog:
Is it possible to have both ...
25
votes
11answers
17k views
Is There A Free Photoshop Alternative for Mac OS X?
I've been doing quite a bit of searching, but I'm only turning up commercially licensed packages. I don't need something as fully-featured as Photoshop, but something in that genre is sufficient. ...
23
votes
5answers
43k views
How can I create or recreate a Lion recovery partition?
For whatever reason, one of our macs didn't make a recovery partition when it upgraded to Lion.
Is it possible to add a recovery partition after the fact?
To be clear - on a normal mac, the ...
23
votes
2answers
29k views
Uninstalling Java on Lion
I recently installed the Java runtime (through Software Update) and enabled the Java browser plug-in and WebStart on Lion, but I don't need them anymore.
Unchecking "Enable Java" in Safari ...
19
votes
3answers
4k views
Is it safe to upgrade Bash via Homebrew?
I'm new to OS X. I'm running OS X Lion on a MacBook Pro. Is it safe to upgrade the bash shell using Homebrew:
$ brew install bash
If safe, how do I make it the default instance of the shell I run ...
18
votes
6answers
3k views
How to add characters to the press and hold character picker in OS X Lion?
In OS X Lion, there is a very useful feature for people like me who need to write in multiple languages, which pops up a small menu of additional characters when you hold down a letter.
For instance, ...
18
votes
11answers
40k views
How to fix slow Spotlight and Time Machine after upgrading to 10.7.5?
Since updating to 10.7.5 both Spotlight and Time Machine are very slow.
To index a normal system drive Spotlight calculates to need several days.
As a result Time Machine takes up to an hour or more ...
18
votes
6answers
3k views
How do I prevent document preview over slow connections?
Once in a while I have to work over a 3G network, which is reasonable, until I mount a file system on the other side of the world.
When that happens OSX tries to show me "previews" of every single ...
17
votes
3answers
36k views
How to turn Mac OS X Lion into a web server?
After using MAMP for ages, I found out I could actually use Snow Leopard's built-in Apache server. Now that I've upgraded to Lion, I have no idea how to do this anymore.
Do you know how to turn my ...
17
votes
5answers
18k views
How do you delete apps from Lion's Launchpad?
When pressing alt/option in Lion's Launchpad, only some icons get the delete X overlay to remove them. How do you delete the others? I've read that control-option-command should do this, but it ...
17
votes
6answers
29k views
How can I install Mac OS X Lion in VirtualBox, or any other type of virtual machine?
I purchased Lion and heard that it supports virtual machine install.
I want to install Lion into my VirtualBoxVM on Lion on on iMac. How can I do this?
17
votes
3answers
2k views
Is there a way to suppress badge counts and the dock icon bounce for Terminal.app in Lion?
With the new state saving features (which I want to keep), the dock notifications are more aggrivating to me in Lion. Can I suppress the bounce and/or the notification badge functions?
While I like ...
16
votes
3answers
2k views
Is it possible to burn a DVD out of the Lion app store install?
Is it possible to burn a DVD out of the Lion app store install?
16
votes
3answers
8k views
How to completely disable auto-save and versions in Mac OS X Lion?
I hate the automatic saving and versioning in Mac OS X Lion.
Is there a way to completely turn it off?
(This has been asked before here, but the answer and the linked article are completely wrong, ...
16
votes
4answers
5k views
Can Finder delete a file directly and bypass moving it to the Trash?
Is it possible to really delete a file (ie, bypass the Trash) from Finder? Currently, when I want to reclaim space from a USB drive, I rm files/folder from the Terminal, but I'd like to do it from the ...
16
votes
5answers
6k views
What is wired memory?
I'm trying to figure out what is using all of the memory in my Macbook Pro running OS X Lion. I have 8 GB of memory total. When I quit all active programs except Finder and Activity Monitor, then run ...
16
votes
8answers
2k views
What features from Lion will be lost when upgrading to Mountain Lion?
I know Mountain Lion has some cool new features that Lion did not have, but will it overwrite any of Lion's functionality?
16
votes
4answers
15k views
Upgraded to Lion: Time Machine spends a LOT of time indexing backup
I upgraded my MacBook Pro to Lion and one of the problems I've had is that Time Machine keeps running and running, and the fans go on.
This usually seems to be in the state where it indexes the ...
16
votes
2answers
18k views
How do I write to NTFS drives in Lion?
What is the best, easiest, preferably cheapest way to make Lion write to (external) NTFS-formatted drives in Mac OS Lion?
16
votes
10answers
9k views
How do I go back and forward in Chrome using a Magic Mouse in Lion?
Before installing Lion, I could use the "double finger left/right swipe" gesture to go back and forward in the history in Google Chrome.
After installing Lion, I can't find any mouse gesture that ...
16
votes
3answers
3k views
Cmd+Tab switches to the correct space, but doesn't bring app up to front
I have a problem (bug?) with application switching on Lion.
I use two Spaces. Say one has Postbox open, and another has Firefox and Vim.
Vim is in the foreground, and Firefox's window is behind it.
...
16
votes
3answers
2k views
Macbook Pro Retina running at native resolution
A question I've had in my head since I first saw screenshots of the display preference pane on the new Retina MBP is this: Can it be made to run with what you could call a 1.0 UI scaling factor (same ...
15
votes
2answers
4k views
Can I hide the sync icon in the menu bar on Lion?
This menu bar icon is useless and takes up space.
I use iCloud on Mac OS X Lion to sync contacts, calendars, and the like. On Snow Leopard I could use an option in the iSync preferences to remove ...
15
votes
4answers
1k views
What happened to the Finder window 'jellybean' in OS X Lion?
Before I updated to Lion, whenever I would mount a disk image (.dmg) the Finder window that would pop-up would always have a little 'jellybean' in the top right corner that would expand this window ...
15
votes
2answers
9k views
Was the FileMerge application removed from OS X 10.7.3?
I just updated to 10.7.3 and can no longer find the FileMerge application, which is part of the Xcode developer tools package. Did apple remove this in 10.7.3?
I've checked in my developer directory, ...
15
votes
5answers
15k views
How to always show menubar with fullscreen apps?
Does anyone know if it is possible to keep the menubar in Mac OS Lion visible for fullscreen apps instead of hidden until hovered over with a mouse or trackpad?
I imagine there's some Terminal ...
14
votes
6answers
8k views
Why might iChat not connect after upgrading to Lion?
Since upgrading to Lion, iChat refuses to connect to either my AIM or Google Talk accounts. (Not a Google Apps account, fwiw.) Interestingly, if I sign in to AIM on another computer and try to get ...
14
votes
8answers
32k views
Macbook Air + Lion + Windows 7 Boot Camp + shared partition
I would like to setup my Macbook Air's disk drive with 3 partitions - 50Gb for OSX Lion, 50Gb for Windows 7, and the remaining 150Gb for Data to share between both OSes (music, photos etc).
What's ...
14
votes
1answer
545 views
Should I make my primary user an Administrator or not?
For a long time, I have had two accounts on my Mac : an administrator account that I normally don't use, and a "normal user" that I use for day-to-day work. I did this because it should be more secure ...
14
votes
8answers
27k views
What applications enable AirPlay mirroring for Mac?
Do any applications enable AirPlay from my Mac to an Apple TV? I am looking to wirelessly mirror my Mac's display to the TV, similar to the way iPad 2 and iPhone 4S can mirror their displays over ...
14
votes
5answers
39k views
Is there an application like Connectify for Mac OS X Lion?
There is a well known app for Windows named: Connectify, used to share a wifi connection between a computer that only has wifi with other devices which requests that connection from the computer.
...
14
votes
5answers
13k views
Chax with Mac OS X Lion?
Has anybody tried Chax with Mac OS X Lion?
I got it to install perfectly, but I do not see a Chax tab in iChat preferences.
14
votes
10answers
12k views
Why is Preview excessively slow after upgrading to Lion?
After upgrading to OS X Lion, I noticed that my preview app is now excessively slow, taking minutes to open a file instead of seconds, even when opening a local file. In addition, it is often ...
14
votes
3answers
791 views
Is it possible to disable Terminal's automatic tweaking of colors in Lion?
While it's great that Terminal now has built-in support for changing the ANSI colors, I find it annoying that it automatically adjusts the colors to improve contrast, which means the colors that I ...
