Many posts suggest restarting in Safe Mode and simply deleting CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal; however, that unfortunate approach reportedly breaks WiFi, screen capture, Settings, and more.
u/Ancient-Reply2879 and Pony appear to have independently arrived at the correct method: delete the folder (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\CapabilityAccessManager\) rather than the file (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\CapabilityAccessManager\ CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal).
Refactored a PowerShell script shared by Anonymous (2024) and jsmorley (2025) to delete the directory rather than the contents:
Almost-perfect solution, with one limitation: catch-all matching works for sender or message content, not both simultaneously. Feedback filed with Apple via Feedback Assistant.
Shortcuts → Automation
New Automation → Message
Leave Sender as Any Sender to match all senders or leave Message Contains as Choose to match any text message content - at least one field must have a value to enable Next (Message Contains sadly does not support regex; a single space suffices, though messages containing no spaces will be missed)
Change Run After Confirmation to Run Immediately → Next
Create New Shortcut → Send Message → Message → e.g., "I am out of the office"
Tap and hold Recipients → Shortcut Input
Tap checkmark icon at top right to save
Handles both iMessage and SMS, runs immediately without interaction, and executes even with the screen off.
Wuqiong Zhao's pdfcrop Web App is sublimely fit to purpose. Tried wrangling a Tauri-based portable Windows app out of it with Claude 4.6 Opus, Gemini 3.1 Pro, and GPT 5.4 over several hours with little to show for it.
Dear friend and AI whisperer Josh adroitly conjured up a wonderful solution using Copilot & GPT-5.4-high in a twinkling, even fixing crop-box handle resizing along the way:
Successfully tested the following build steps in Windows 11 24H2 ARM64, macOS 26.4.1 Tahoe, and Ubuntu Linux 22.04:
macOS Mojave and earlier store sticky notes in a single file, ~/Library/StickiesDatabase. Catalina and later use ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Stickies/ (Finder displays it as ~/Library/Containers/Stickies/), with RTFD files in ./Data/Library/Stickies/ and note color and window positioning data stored in ./Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Stickies.plist.
For many macOS upgrade scenarios that straddle this divide (e.g., High Sierra to Sequoia), the database migration silently fails. Even in the best case (as when upgrading from Mojave to Catalina), colors revert to yellow and window positioning is lost.
Solutions
Stickies.app 10.2 (build 138) from macOS 10.14.6 can be copied to Tahoe alongside ~/Library/StickiesDatabase and runs successfully; colors and window positions are preserved. "Export Text…" (Plain Text, RTF, RTFD) works; "Export All to Notes…" does not.
If preserving sticky note colors isn't necessary, simply restore ~/Library/StickiesDatabase to a clean macOS 10.15, 11, 12, or 13 instance; Stickies will populate com.apple.Stickies from it on first launch (fails under macOS 14, 15, & 26).
1. In Mojave, restore a backup of ~/Library/StickiesDatabase. 2. Optionally export to Notes.app (File → Export All to Notes…) for posterity; colors are preserved as folder names. The Notes database (~/Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes) can be imported as-is into modern macOS versions. 3. Upgrade Mojave to Catalina; com.apple.Stickies can now be imported into later versions including Tahoe. Colors must be manually corrected (or perhaps scripted to extract values from StickiesDatabase and insert into com.apple.Stickies.plist, an exercise left for the reader). Windows can be un-stacked via AppleScript; this example (tested in Catalina and Tahoe) uses a 5-column layout:
tell application "Stickies" to activate
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Stickies"
set winList to windows
set winCount to count of winList
set numColumns to 5
set noteWidth to 300
set noteHeight to 200
set xGap to 20
set yGap to 20
set baseX to 50
set baseY to 50
repeat with i from 1 to winCount
set colIndex to ((i - 1) mod numColumns)
set rowIndex to ((i - 1) div numColumns)
set theWin to item i of winList
set position of theWin to {baseX + colIndex * (noteWidth + xGap), baseY + rowIndex * (noteHeight + yGap)}
set size of theWin to {noteWidth, noteHeight}
end repeat
end tell
end tell
pystickies: "Converts the database from the Mac's 'Stickies' program into RTF files, one per sticky. This is platform-independent, it doesn't use Cocoa to do the conversion, but rather uses heuristics to find the RTF data within the Stickies database."
pytypedstream: "A pure Python, cross-platform library/tool for reading Mac OS X and NeXTSTEP typedstream files. ... the typedstream data format is still used by some macOS components and applications, such as the Stickies and Grapher applications."
StickiesDbConverter: "Brief python script for exporting a StickiesDatabase file on macOS to a plain text file."
Granted, this is with Maildir enabled and hundreds of thousands of messages across dozens of folders, but the bug had never appeared when the account was configured as IMAP in Thunderbird, so have switched back for now. (The new account had to be set up manually, then switched to OAuth for both IMAP and SMTP, as it wasn't offered otherwise (setup in a fresh Thunderbird profile worked normally). One downside of returning to IMAP: syncing changes to macOS Mail once again requires quitting Thunderbird.)
Update
While penning this post, happened upon an open bug from 17 years ago:
The IODD Guide explains that "The ISO/VHD file is too fragmented to load (Max 24 fragments for ISO; 0 for VHD)." and suggests "Use defragmentation utilities like MyDefrag (dead link) or Defraggler."
Another option is WinContig (H/T), a green, portable app that merited a rare addition to the System page:
🌱WinContig v5.0.3.3 [961K] + "Quickly defragment individual files without the need to defragment the entire disk." Supports Windows Vista through 11, server versions from 2008 to 2019, and FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, and ReFS filesystems. 📺
Updates
Initially skipped SysInternals' Contig, believing it only supported NTFS as claimed on Wikipedia ("Supported file systems: NTFS") and even more explicitly on Grokipedia ("It exclusively supports the NTFS file system, leveraging the native Windows NT defragmentation API introduced in NT 4.0, and does not function on FAT, exFAT, or other file systems."). However, version 1.83 successfully defragmented an ISO file on an exFAT-formatted drive.
IODD offers VHD Tool++, a portable app with a number of functions including file defragmenting. However, the current version (0.8.0.1) simply wraps Contig, which is bundled inside. (Curiously, VHD Tool++ is not mentioned on IODD's own error messages page, which instead recommends MyDefrag and Defraggler as noted above.)
MX Linux, built on Debian Stable and offered in Xfce, KDE, and Fluxbox flavors, booted a 2012 iMac faster than any of the standard distros, with WiFi and sound working out of the box.
OEM installation is as easy as booting from the ISO and running sudo minstall --oem in the terminal (default accounts: demo/demo, root/root).
"Run classic Windows and DOS executables directly in your browser. No installation required. Just drag, drop, and watch programs come alive in a web page.
"RetroTick is an x86 virtual machine and Windows/DOS API compatibility layer built from scratch in TypeScript. It parses PE (Win32), NE (Win16), and MZ (DOS) binaries, executes x86 machine code instruction by instruction, and reimplements a subset of the Win32, Win16, and DOS API surface, enough to boot several .exe files from the classic Windows era and render their GUIs in the browser."
The developer shared on HN: "Hidden feature: right-click any executable and select 'View Resources' to browse its embedded resources like icons, bitmaps, dialogs, and version info. It even supports viewing Delphi forms (though Delphi programs can't actually run yet). Think of it as a browser-based Resource Hacker or eXeScope."
retrowin32 "is a still-early Windows emulator for the web (and other non-Windows platforms). Take a win32 .exe file and run it in a web browser or a Mac. See some demos."
iOS 26.2 broke MileBug at last; it hadn't been updated in years, the founder having apparently sold to Bending Spoons in 2018. Failing to find a simple mileage tracker in the App Store, I cobbled together a Shortcuts workflow which does the job.
Starting mileage is automatically populated by the previous ending mileage, though it can be quickly adjusted via the dashboard widget when necessary (as when switching vehicles or having driven untracked miles).
1. Setup
Create the Log Database
Open Notes.
Create a new note titled Mileage Log.
Add this header on the second line: Date,Vehicle,Start,End,Mileage.
Create the Storage Folder
Create a new folder in Notes named Mileage.
Create the Tracker Note
Inside the Mileage folder, create a new note titled Milebug.
Enter your current odometer reading on the second line (immediately under the title).
Add a Notes widget to your Home Screen, swiping to select one of the Folder options (as opposed to "Note" or "Quick Note"), then tap Add Widget.
Tap the widget while it is still jiggling and change the Folder setting from the default Notes to Mileage.
Configure System Settings
Navigate to Settings → Apps → Shortcuts → Advanced.
Enable Allow Deleting Without Confirmation. (Ensures that the shortcut runs silently in the background without prompting you every time it updates the tracker).
2. Shortcuts workflow
Open the Shortcuts app and tap + to create a new shortcut.
2.1. Vehicle Selection
Add List.
Rename the default items (One, Two) to your vehicle names (e.g., FJ40, Fit).
Add Choose from List.
Add Set Variable.
Set Variable Name to Vehicle.
2.2. Get Start Mileage
Add Find Notes.
Add Filter → Name containsMilebug → Limit to 1 item.
Add Get Text from Input.
Should automatically connect to Note.
Add Split Text.
Should auto-fill New Lines.
Add Get Item from List.
Change First Item to Item at Index 2
Add Set Variable.
Change Variable Name to Start
2.3. Get End Mileage
Add Ask for Input.
Change Text to Number.
Change Prompt to End Mileage.
Add Set Variable.
Change Variable Name to End
2.4. Calculate Distance
Add Calculate.
Change + to -.
Tap Number and select Start from the list of options
Add Set Variable.
Change Variable Name to Distance.
2.5. Prepare Log Entry
Add Date. (Defaults to Current Date)
Add Text.
Tap inside the text box
Tap the following tokens in the popup menu, adding a comma between each one: Date, Vehicle, Start, End, and Distance.
Tap the [Date] token in the text box then set Date Format to Short and Time Format to None.
2.6. Save the Log
Add Append to Note.
Tap Text and select Text token with yellow icon
Tap Note and select Mileage Log
2.7. Update the Tracker
Add Find Notes.
Tap Appended Note then Clear Variable
Tap Add Filter → for Name contains, change anything to Milebug and limit to 1 item
Add Delete Notes.
Add Text.
Tap inside the text box and enter Milebug on the first line, press Return, then select the End variable from the popup menu
Add Create Note.
Change Contents to the Text token with yellow icon
Change Folder to Mileage
3. Wrap-up
Tap the arrow next to the shortcut name at the top of the screen to access Rename, Choose Icon, and Add to Home Screen options.
"Open GPX Tracker is a GPS logger for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod) with offline map cache support. Track your location, add waypoints and send your logs by email as GPX files.
"This app has no annoying time restrictions, no ads and no in-app-purchases. You can create unlimited GPX traces :).
"If you are goint to track without Internet... don't worry! Before you go offline, browse the area where you'll be tracking and it will be cached and available offline.
"We care about your privacy, all the data recorded using the application is kept in your phone (or in your iCloud), wherever you store it. The app does not share any GPS data with us or any other 3rd pary. For more information see the Privacy Policy."
Shortcuts Toolkit: "Comprehensive toolkit for generating Apple Shortcuts programmatically using reverse-engineered binary plist format."
"Copy and paste multiple actions, view/edit/compare/save/import/repair/web-review shortcuts. ... Web Review can also be converted to and viewed/saved as plain text. "
Primarily aimed at local contacts, since cloud-synced contacts can be removed from the device by disabling contact syncing. Back up first; deletions are permanent.
Two-finger drag to multi-select contacts, then long press the selection to open the context menu and tap "Delete Contacts". Tedious for more than a few dozen.
This free (no IAP) app deleted over 43,000 contacts in a minute or two: Delete → View all contacts → More (⋯) → Select all → Delete Selected → Delete contacts
Shortcuts lacks a native "Delete Contact" action, but Scriptable (free; donations accepted via IAP) allows you to interact directly with the iOS Contacts API, e.g.,
Apple MacOS 26 Tahoe De-Enshittifier 2026 script: "It nukes the background 'intelligence' services, stops the OS from trying to guess your typing, and kills UI animations that make Tahoe feel like a lagging toy."
Dangerzone: "Take potentially dangerous PDFs, office documents, or images and convert them to safe PDFs."
Easy Disk Checker: "[B]uilt as a single executable EXE file, requires no installation, leaves no traces in the system, installs no drivers, and does not modify the registry." From the announcement on r/datarecoverysoftware: "I've been working more than 20 years in a Data Recovery lab, and I often need a quick, reliable tool to check the physical state of drives without installing heavy software or seeing ads everywhere. So, I developed free for use native Windows app..."
A. L. Wies (@DrogenDiego) has married an M1 MacBook Pro with a 40Hz color e-paper display from OED (one of E Ink's few competitors):
"I wanted to share my InkBook. It's a E-Paper Laptop. I bought a used 16 inch MacBook Pro M1 that had a broken screen and replaced it with an OED 13 inch color E-Paper Panel.
"I adapted the firmware to my needs and wrote custom dithering algorithms. Mine is using edge aware bayer dithering for most of the content. I also show floyd steinberg error diffusion dithering. It looks very natural but looses brightness.
"I put a thin 6 mm wooden case behind the display to fit the PCB. But with a custom PCB it would've been possible to include everything in the display case.
"It's connected via USBC and acts as an external display. I managed to keep the front camera working :)
"I will do a seperate video where I explain in detail how I did it and the steps involved.
"This year is gonna be really cool for E-Paper. The technology is ready now for everyday E-Paper screens.
"if you have questions you can write in the comments. I will answer them ;)"
Email OAuth 2.0 Proxy is a local IMAP/POP/SMTP proxy that adds OAuth 2.0 authentication transparently, allowing email clients that don't support OAuth to keep working unchanged. From the README:
"Email services that support IMAP, POP and/or SMTP access are increasingly requiring the use of OAuth 2.0 to authenticate connections, but not all clients support this method. This tool is a local proxy that intercepts the traditional IMAP/POP/SMTP authentication commands and transparently replaces them with the appropriate SASL (X)OAuth 2.0 commands and credentials. Your email client, app or device can continue to use the login or auth/authenticate options, with no need to make it aware of OAuth's existence. The proxy works in the background with a menu bar/taskbar helper or as a headless system service, and is compatible with macOS, Windows and Linux. It can be used with any email provider that supports OAuth 2.0 authentication, including Outlook, Office 365, Hotmail, 21Vianet, Gmail, Google Workspace, Fastmail, Yahoo, Comcast, AOL and many others."
"A Genuine Parts Distributor may require account creation or sign-in prior to order placement. See the distributor’s site for more information."
Not finding the part listed on MobileSentrix, I clicked the prominent chat bubble and asked whether it was available. I was informed that:
"At this time, in order for us to assist you with sourcing this part, you would first need to create an account with us. Since we operate on a B2B basis, we require valid business documentation to verify your account. Unfortunately, without this verification, we are unable to assist with sourcing the Mac Pro (2019) power supply."
No problem; I am a business customer and happy to create an account (though the B2B requirement seemed a little odd in light of Apple's "To repair Apple products, purchase genuine Apple parts from a Genuine Parts Distributor and reference the repair manual for your device."):
"Thank you for your understanding, and I appreciate your willingness to set up an account. Once you have completed the account setup, please return to this thread and let us know. We will be more than happy to assist you with sourcing the Mac Pro (2019) power supply and any other parts you may need."
Great! Set up the account as requested and was then informed:
"Please send your business license and government-issued ID to our onboarding team. Once your account is approved, we can proceed with sourcing the part for you. Please keep us updated once approval is complete."
I asked why a personal government-issued ID was required for a corporate account and was told that it "is a required part of the onboarding process even for corporate accounts."
OK, redacted the most sensitive bits on my driver's license with Preview and watermarked via iWatermark+ (for what it's worth), then sent along with the business registration.
Five days later, received this message:
"Thank you for sending over the requested documents. Unfortunately, we are strictly business to business wholesale suppliers who only service established brick and mortar phone repair shops. Due to this, we are unable to have your account approved. I apologies [sic] for any inconvenience that this may cause you"
True, my business does operate exclusively onsite and remotely; it might've been nice for Apple or MobileSentrix to mention a brick-and-mortar store requirement somewhere along the way before submitting sensitive documentation.
If only I had read Replace the power supply in your Mac Pro (2019) more carefully; it clearly states, "If you need to order a replacement power supply, contact Apple." Sure enough, they happily sold me the unlisted PSU by phone, no waiting, ID, or business documentation required!
without installing kernel extensions or weakening system security, via anylinuxfs. Built on the libkrun microVM hypervisor and NFS, it provides read/write access to virtually any Linux-compatible filesystem (ext4, btrfs, xfs, ZFS, NTFS*, exFAT, etc.), encrypted volumes (LUKS, BitLocker), and advanced storage configurations (LVM, RAID, multi-disk setups). Works with internal/external drives, disk images, and GPT, MBR, or raw partition formats.
TL;DR: Since at least February 2020, Microsoft's Autodiscover service has incorrectly routed the IANA-reserved example.com to Sumitomo Electric Industries' mail servers at sei.co.jp, potentially sending test credentials there.
Problem
While setting up email@example.com as a dummy account in Outlook (on both Windows and macOS), Outlook consistently auto-configured it to use imapgms.jnet.sei.co.jp (IMAP) and smtpgms.jnet.sei.co.jp (SMTP) despite example.com being an IANA-reserved domain that should not resolve to real services.
The same behavior appeared on different machines, profiles, networks, and DNS resolvers, including a newly provisioned Windows 365 Cloud PC:
Confirmation
DNS verification
Confirm that example.com has no DNS records pointing to sei.co.jp:
The domain has a null MX record (indicating it doesn't accept email) and no Autodiscover DNS entries, confirming the misconfiguration exists entirely within Microsoft's database.
Microsoft autodiscover API response
Microsoft's Autodiscover service misconfiguration can be confirmed via curl -v -u "email@example.com:password" "https://prod.autodetect.outlook.cloud.microsoft/autodetect/detect?app=outlookdesktopBasic":
"
