Questions tagged [services]
OS X Services allow sharing data and capabilities across applications. They are invoked by the user either through the active application menu's "Services" submenu or via keyboard shortcuts, typically to act on the data selected in the currently active application.
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Leave SSH daemon running permanently
I, for some reason, cannot seem to find a google search which actually answers this question. I have a mac, and I would like to have the ssh daemon running in the background at all times, so I can ssh ...
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Can the Services menu be edited to have submenus by editing a plist (without Automator)?
I can edit a binary plist with Xcode or convert it to XML and edit that as text. Never used Automator and don't want to bother until such time as I cannot accomplish a goal with a tool I already know....
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Create a shortcut for an item on services menu in Ventura
I installed a translation app that does better translations than Apple’s built-in translator or translate.google.com. It added an option to the global services menu to translate selected text. Since ...
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TextEdit’s "Orientation Layout"
Just discovered a very nice feature of Services on the context menu. In TextEdit, selecting Orientation Layout→Vertical rotates the text and characters 90° clockwise, keeping the window geometry the ...
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What is the name of the process/service which copies data from mac to iphone?
I mean when you copy something from your mac to the files app on iphone, not sync.
Google gets confused by this question and all the results are 'how to transfer data from mac to iphone' etc.
I want ...
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Shortcut to translate selected text
any hint on how to create a keyboard shortcut to translate a selected text in Safari (or, even better, in any app?)
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How to set up a dummy service that runs at certain hours of the day?
I use a program called Jiggler to prevent my MacBook from going to sleep. However, I only want Jiggler to do this between certain hours of the day, such as 9-5.
Jiggler doesn't have such a setting in ...
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Interpretation of system services on iPhone [Arrows (hollow, purple and gray)]
I use an iPhone 11 for work and I share my location with friends and family. I currently have the following results:
Can I safely conclude that in the last 24 hours no one has verified my location ...
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Set Date Modified to oldest of selected files in Finder?
I'm trying to write a shell script to use in a Service I'm creating in Automator to change the "Date Modified" of all files selected in Finder to the date of the oldest modified file ...
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How to add version to an Automator service workflow
I have a workflow which is installed as a Service. It is used to call code in my AppleScript applet. The Service has one action: a "Run AppleScript" action. I update the Service quite often ...
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How to add "Open in Safari" to Chrome right-click menu?
When I'm in Chrome, I'd like to be able to right-click on some links and choose "Open in Safari" from the Services submenu.
As a security precaution, how can this be done without relying on ...
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Running Launchd Services with Non Root User on macOS
I am building a launchctl service which can run a java service. I am able to create launchctl service with root user and test start/stop/status/automatic start at reboot use cases.
I am struggling ...
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Does a service exist to open selected filename from the Terminal in an app?
I know I can do an open -a Textmate FILE or open FOLDER by typing, but is there already a text service so that a name can be Ctrl-clicked to "Open in Finder" or "Open in Editor"?
A ...
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How to force a service shortcut to override an application one?
I want to have a global "send to omnifocus" shortcut. I have enabled it and set via Keyboard -> Services.
Unfortunately, it seems to conflict with some default shortcut in the Apple Mail.
...
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Changing text via a Services-based Perl shell scripts in Shortcuts on macOS 12 Monterey
I have a handful of Automator actions that I'm trying to port to Shortcuts. One of them works like this:
I select some text in an app.
I right-click the selected text and select Services → Prefix ...
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Keyboard shortcut to stop an Automator service (Quick Action)
I have a Watch Me Do automator service / quick action that uses pause and a long running loop to repeat the actions when I am away.
I have created a keyboard shortcut for the service
But since it uses ...
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Remove 'Search the web' / 'Search with Google' service
How would you remove 'Search with Google' from the right-click menu? The setting in System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts has no effect at all. Uninstalling Safari just turns 'Search with ...
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Change path of file before running a command in automator
I created a service in automator to open a file via quicklook, using the below code
qlmanage -p "$@"
I'm able to open the selected file via quicklook. But I want to open a different file ...
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Showing a macOS service in the menu
I have written a simple Automator workflow which process selected text. It does the job, and is available from most applications in the Service menu in the Text group.
I have one application, the ...
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What is com.apple.MobileSoftwareUpdate.UpdateBrainService doing?
What is com.apple.MobileSoftwareUpdate.UpdateBrainService?
I have it running and using a lot of CPU resources. (about 300% CPU core in top)
I also found out it would mount a partition at /System/...
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Service to underline plain text with a line of dashes
I am looking for a text service that I can call from a plain text editor (BBedit for example) and will operate the following modification:
Before:
This is a line of text
After:
This is a line of text
...
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Problems starting vnstat installed with brew
After installing vnstat with homebrew:
brew install vnstat
and opening it, i got following error:
Error: Failed to open database "/usr/local/var/db/vnstat/vnstat.db" in read-only mode.
The ...
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What service to restart after modifying /etc/sudoers for macOS to make changes active without reboot?
What's the service that needs to be restarted after modifying /etc/sudoers for macOS in order to make changes active without a system reboot?
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Hide the source code for an Automator quick action / service
I have created an Automator quick action. The quick action listens for highlighted text on any application and runs some shell script based on the highlighted text.
The quick action can be triggered ...
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Keyboard Shortcut for Automator Service
I have a word count 'services' called with LMB and scrolling down to the services menu. I'd like to have a keyboard shortcut for it since I use it very often. All of the answers I see require that the ...
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How to use `click` in a shortcut? (Run a service when clicking a link)
Is it possible to run an Automator service with an alternate click, e.g. ⌘ + ⇧ + Click? This kind of combination is built into browsers with ⌘ + Click typically opening a link in a new tab.
I have a ...
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Service only application
I want to build a simple service that will allow me to keep any app window always on top or always on the same screen, when switching desktops.
Is there a way to build a global MacOS service-only ...
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Access text services via code
Is there a way to access text services such as these through either Applescript or terminal commands?
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Has Safari stopped forwarding link URLs to system services when using the link's context menu?
I seem to recall being able to right-click a link in Safari and use a system service from the context menu in order to send the actual link target URL to the service in question.
Nowadays when right-...
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Keyboard shortcut to a Service is not respected when Emacs is open (Emacs takes precedence)
I defined the keyboard shortcut Cmd-Ctrl-5 to a Service via System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services. It should work globally and indeed works well except for when Emacs is ...
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Can a faulty MacBook be replaced for a brand new one?
7 months I ago I bought a new MacBook air 2019. Just recently the trackpad of my MacBook stopped clicking. As in, the haptic feedback from the clicking randomly stoped working. I sent my laptop over ...
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MacBook Pro - Mechanical Popping/Clicking Sound
I keep on getting this Popping/Clicking sound randomly throughout regardless of whether the speaker is on or not. The sound seems to be coming from the physical machine, perhaps the screen or the ...
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I'm trying to make a service to archive a folder using tgz. I can't get this to work
I'm trying to learn to build services on my iMac running High Sierra. I open system preferences and then I click on Keyboard. From there I click on the Shortcuts tab. I get the window shown below.
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Change order of services during startup or login
I've read of ways to change startup services' order of execution for Ubuntu. I'm hoping it's possible and simple to do it in macOS as well. I was thinking something like this. My objective is to ...
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How to uninstall mySIMBLHelper service installed by SIMBL for MAC
I wanted to install Atop which required SIMBL to be installed.
Nothing at the process stated that SIMBL 0.7.5 wasn't compatible with Mojave 10.14.
It started to pop confirmation if I want it to ...
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Automating opening a PDF from Preview.app in preferred PDF editor
When having a PDF file open in Preview.app, I'd like to click a menu item or keyboard hotkey to open the same file in my preferred PDF editor (f.x. PDF Expert).
I suppose it could be done by creating ...
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AppleScript to massage URLs
I want to have a Services menu item that takes the selected text (a URL) and escapes the percent character and the # character:
Replace % with \%
Replace # with \string#
I copied and edited an ...
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Files and Folders services do not appear
I'm running macOS Catalina 10.15.2.
I enabled "Files and Folders" in Services under Shortcuts in the Keyboard tab and I enabled all services under Files and Folders.
The services do not appear in ...
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Services menu polluted by apps from another installation
Reinstalled 10.15, signed into icloud, had previous 10.13 on another partition for a while.
10.15 is a clean install. The apps that provide those services haven't even been installed.
~/Library/...
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Are apsd, ntpd, mDNSResponder, trustd, netbiosd necessary for macOS functioning?
I'm seeing 5 processes with network activity ( sending/receiving bytes ). I'm not sure whether these are normal occurrences?
List of processes
apsd
ntpd
mDNSResponder
trustd
netbiosd
I researched a ...
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"service" not showing up
I installed the GlobalProtect VPN on MacOS Darwin 18.7
I cannot remove it. It is attempting to start but does not succeed.
It appears in the output of
ps aux
518 5.6 0.3 6093596 112332 ?? S ...
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Cannot get httpd to listen on port 80
I installed httpd using brew.
I edited /usr/local/etc/httpd/httpd.conf and changed:
Listen 8080
to:
Listen 80
Restarted the service:
brew services restart httpd
But Apache's still listening on ...
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Applescript service which utilises "on idle"?
I have been trying to run a script on a recurring basis via an apple service.
Most answers I have seen have been are for 'stay-open' apps - whilst this possibly works as a solution and I have glanced ...
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Starting multiple HomeBrew Services
I would like to run two different mongodb databases on my Mac. I installed mongodb with the HomeBrew manager. However I was unable to find a possibility to create new homebrew services. I already ...
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launchd: Confusion on semantics of bootstrap and bootout etc. after reading manual pages
I've read the following manual pages on launchd: launchctl, launchd, and launchd.plist.
However, nothing is really said in these manual pages regarding what the launchctl boostrap and launchctl ...
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Why does setting the hard-limit for maxfiles to "unlimited" using `launchctl limit` result in a hard-limit slightly above the soft-limit?
Why does setting the hard-limit for maxfiles to "unlimited" using launchctl limit result in a hard-limit slightly above the soft-limit?
By setting the maxfiles limit using launchctl to launchctl ...
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Where is the "Open URL" Service?
I created a service using Automator called "Open URL in Public Window". Its purpose is to never open a selected link in a private window (which will happen if the current front-most Safari window [...
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How to determine which keyboard shortcut combo is free to assign?
I've already spent much more time in finding a combination that works in every app (universal) than in creating the actual service. The shortcut triggers a service for increasing or decreasing the ...
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How do I change the Services sub component to not use Safari web browser
When I right click and use the "Search Google for" different things happen. For one, if I am in Chrome it opens a new tab in Chrome and searches as I want. However, if I use this menu anywhere else in ...
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How do I prevent nginx from auto-loading using homebrew?
I'm using Mac High Sierra. I install nginx with homebrw a while back, but I can't remember how to permanently stop it from running when my computer boots. I have this file
localhost:mydir davea$ ls ...
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