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Free the Icons
a month ago
- Apple changed MacOS app icons in Tahoe to a 'Liquid Glass' style, making them blurry and less distinct.
- In Golden Gate betas, Apple improved icons by removing excessive Liquid Glass, making them sharper.
- Apple forced third-party app icons into a uniform squircle shape in Tahoe, reducing usability and creativity.
- Distinct icon shapes help users differentiate apps, especially for those with color vision deficiencies.
- Apple should allow varied icon shapes again to improve usability and restore artistic expression in MacOS.
Transparent Compression with Folder Actions in macOS
25 days ago
- AFSCT is a transparent file system compression built into macOS that compresses files on disk while keeping them accessible normally.
- Use applesauce (a modern Rust tool) for faster, parallel compression with safe atomic writes instead of the older afsctool.
- Set up a Folder Action with Automator to automatically compress files when they are added to a specific folder.
- Folder Actions only trigger on top-level file additions or removals, not on changes to existing files or subfolders.
- By default, applesauce uses LZFSE, but you can choose LZVN for faster decompression or ZLIB for better compression ratios.
- Compression savings are visible in Finder's Get Info, with the size in brackets showing the reduced disk usage.
- Manage Folder Actions setup via the Folder Actions Setup dialog to enable or attach actions to multiple folders.
Dissecting Apple's Sparse Image Format (ASIF)
a month ago
- ASIF is a new sparse disk image format for macOS 26 Tahoe, designed for virtual machines and similar to VMDK, VHDX, or QCOW2.
- The header includes fields like signature, version, directory offsets, sector count, chunk size, and metadata block offset.
- Data is organized into directories, tables, and chunk groups with bitmaps for allocation tracking, enabling sparse storage.
- Reverse engineering involved analyzing hexdumps and the diskimagescontroller binary to understand the format's structure and access algorithms.
- Reading from ASIF requires calculating table and chunk indices based on offset, chunk size, and group mappings.
- The implementation is available in dissect.hypervisor, allowing tools to parse ASIF files and extract disk and volume information.
macOS Golden Gate icon comparison
a month ago
- WWDC introduces many platform changes; first noticed are updated macOS Golden Gate icons with bolder colors and adjusted designs.
- Significant changes in Liquid Glass effect refraction, especially in Journal icon, along with increased sharpness and flattening effect.
- Uncertain if sharp black edges on icons like Finder are intentional final design or early-beta artifacts.
- List of icons in macOS Golden Gate beta 1 compared to previous liquid glass Tahoe version provided for review.
"Fix" MacBook Neo Cursor Lag: Record 1 Pixel of the Screen Every 10 Seconds
a month ago
- The script is a Bash script for building a macOS application called 'Unlag Neo'.
- It compiles a Swift program that creates a status bar app to manage screen recording permissions and control screen capture behavior.
- The app monitors for fullscreen windows and can pause screen capture when a fullscreen application is active.
- It handles accessibility permissions and provides UI alerts for missing permissions.
- The app includes menu options to toggle functionality, enable launch at login, and exit.
- The screen capture uses a 1x1 resolution with a 10-second frame interval to keep permissions active.
- The script sets up the app bundle, compiles the Swift code, and opens the app directory upon completion.
Show HN: Dockside – I turned unused space around the macOS Dock into a workspace
23 days ago
- Dockside is a customizable file shelf for Mac that works beside or independently of the Dock, offering drag zones, automations, and quick access to recent files.
- It supports a 14-day free trial and a lifetime license for $5.99, with features like offline privacy, no data collection, and Apple Notarization for security.
- Users praise it for boosting productivity, with reviews highlighting its flexibility, seamless integration into workflows, and responsive developer support.
Show HN: Davit, a Apple Containers UI
19 days ago
- A fully native macOS app for running Linux containers on Apple silicon without Docker Desktop.
- Free, open source, MIT licensed, signed, and notarized. Requires macOS 15 or later on Apple silicon.
- Directly communicates with Apple's container daemon via XPC, avoiding Electron or background agents.
- Features include container management with live stats, streaming logs, interactive shells, and resource editing.
- Containers are immutable; Davit prefills new ones from old configs for quick adjustments.
- Handles image pulling, volume creation, subnet customization, and resource validation via TOML overrides.
- Automatically downloads and sets up Apple's container platform without admin rights, optionally adding the CLI.
- Built in SwiftUI with menu bar actions, optional Dock icon, and native charts.
macOS 28 will not support encrypted HFS+ volumes
18 days ago
- Encrypted Mac OS Extended disks will not be supported in macOS 28 and later; only unencrypted ones will be compatible.
- Check volume format and encryption via Disk Utility by selecting the volume and looking for 'Mac OS Extended' and 'Encrypted' under its name.
- To prepare for macOS 28, either reformat the volume to APFS or APFS (Encrypted), which erases all data, or decrypt it if not a Time Machine backup disk.
- Decrypt by unlocking the drive, Control-clicking its icon in Finder, and choosing Decrypt; this can take time for large volumes.
- After decryption, optionally convert to APFS without erasing using Disk Utility's Convert to APFS option, and encrypt it again if desired.
Stacks: Run classic HyperCard stacks on modern macOS without emulation
17 days ago
- Run HyperCard stacks directly on modern macOS without an emulator
- Browse and run stacks from the Internet Archive's collection with one-click
- Includes sound, instruments, period-accurate typography, MacinTalk speech synthesis, and cross-stack navigation
- Universal binary requiring macOS 13 (Ventura) or later
Show HN: Rekody, free on-device voice dictation for macOS
13 days ago
- Rekody is a free, open-source dictation app for macOS 13+ on Apple Silicon (Intel via CLI).
- Hold Space to speak and release to insert transcribed text at cursor; Tap Space for continuous dictation.
- All transcription occurs on-device ensuring privacy: no accounts, telemetry, or audio sent to servers.
- App installs via drag-and-drop; CLI version available via Homebrew, supporting Intel Macs and cloud options.
"Disk Not Ejected Properly": What It Means
16 days ago
- The 'Disk Not Ejected Properly' alert on macOS indicates the system unexpectedly lost communication with a storage device, either due to physical disconnection or a communication failure while the device remained attached.
- Mounting a disk involves IOKit managing hardware, DiskArbitration handling volume mounting, and filesystem drivers preparing the volume; unmounting gracefully only removes the mount point, while ejection discards all IOKit device objects.
- Repeated alerts often stem from hardware issues like faulty cables, USB ports, or hubs, or from firmware crashes in the storage device itself, which may be resolved by erasing or replacing the drive.
- While occasional alerts are generally harmless, frequent occurrences can risk data corruption if writes are interrupted, especially during backups, and should be investigated to ensure reliable storage.
Show HN: Chalk: a Mac app for technical diagrams with a built-in MCP for Claude
5 days ago
- Zero-friction macOS app for visualizing thoughts by drawing.
- No tabs, notifications, or accounts; just a clean drawing space.
- Minimal palette of tools with native macOS performance and fast launch.
- Supports pasting screenshots, annotating with arrows and callouts, and copying results to clipboard.
- Integrates with AI tools like Claude or Cursor to refine diagrams.
- Free to start, with upgrade options for more features.
Silent Replacement of Trusted macOS App Executables
3 days ago
- macOS allows silent replacement of a trusted app's main executable under /Contents/MacOS/ after archiving and restoring the app bundle, without triggering authorization prompts or security warnings.
- The attack requires only code execution as the current user, no elevated privileges, and works on apps downloaded from the web after their first launch.
- The replaced executable is ad hoc signed and can impersonate the trusted app in system permission prompts to request access to Keychain secrets and TCC-protected files.
- Apple declined to fix the issue, arguing that no Gatekeeper or TCC bypass occurred and that convincing users to approve prompts is social engineering.
- Suggested remediation includes revalidating code signatures when the bundle changes and displaying the developer identity in authorization prompts.
- The issue affects macOS Tahoe 26.0.0–26.5.2 and Golden Gate 27 beta 1–4, with earlier versions likely also affected.
Show HN: I built a native macOS terminal with Git integration in 5 days
2 days ago
- kero is a free, native macOS workspace built around the terminal, with no telemetry or subscription.
- It organizes projects and sessions: each repo is a project, with multiple terminal tabs and split panes per project, all restoreable on relaunch.
- Features include a git panel for staging, committing, and branch management, inline diffs, a files panel with tree-sitter editing, and session info on processes and TCP ports.
- It uses your existing shell (zsh, fish, bash) unchanged, built on libghostty, supports desktop notifications, progress reports, and fonts like JetBrains Mono.
- Keyboard shortcuts cover project/session switching, pane splitting, sidebar toggling, command palette, and file operations.
- kero is free, does not collect data (only update checks), does not replace your shell, and restores sessions on relaunch.
- It is not an IDE but keeps the terminal central, with supplementary panels for git and file operations.
Malware I got infected with (out of curiosity)
a day ago
- A macOS infostealer loader uses the EtherHiding technique, storing its C2 address in a blockchain smart contract instead of hardcoding it, making it resistant to takedown.
- Persistence is achieved by writing a LaunchAgent plist that loads at login and relaunches if killed, with the script encoded in base64 and piped to osascript to avoid disk traces.
- The loader resolves its C2 from the Polygon blockchain via JSON-RPC eth_call to a specific contract, disguising traffic as benign crypto activity and allowing the attacker to change the C2 by updating the contract.
- Stage 2 is fetched via a curl POST request and executed directly by osascript, enabling arbitrary remote code execution that can be refreshed on every login.

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macos

Free the Icons

Transparent Compression with Folder Actions in macOS

Dissecting Apple's Sparse Image Format (ASIF)

macOS Golden Gate icon comparison

"Fix" MacBook Neo Cursor Lag: Record 1 Pixel of the Screen Every 10 Seconds

Show HN: Dockside – I turned unused space around the macOS Dock into a workspace

Show HN: Davit, a Apple Containers UI

macOS 28 will not support encrypted HFS+ volumes

Stacks: Run classic HyperCard stacks on modern macOS without emulation

Show HN: Rekody, free on-device voice dictation for macOS

"Disk Not Ejected Properly": What It Means

Show HN: Chalk: a Mac app for technical diagrams with a built-in MCP for Claude

Silent Replacement of Trusted macOS App Executables

Show HN: I built a native macOS terminal with Git integration in 5 days

Malware I got infected with (out of curiosity)