Have an older Mac but want Hey Siri voice commands? With a little effort, you can get āHey Siriā on unsupported Macs by using a creative workaround. While new Mac models can enable Hey Siri on the Mac as easily as checking a setting in system preferences, older Macs do not support the same Hey Siri feature. This tutorial will show you how you can replicate the exact same āHey Siriā capability on any Mac that does not support Hey Siri by default, as long as it has regular Siri functionality.
This has been tested and confirmed to work on Macs that have Siri and without official Hey Siri support. This includes Macs running macOS Mojave, High Sierra, and Sierra, as long as Siri is enabled on the Mac you will be able to use this workaround approach to mimic Hey Siri functionality. You will need a microphone, and the Mac must have Siri support. The rest is just a matter of configuring the Mac to listen for a special command and then tie that command to Siri to replicate Hey Siri hands-free voice commands on a Mac.
How to Enable āHey Siriā on Unsupported Macs
This is a multiple-step process to setup Hey Siri on an unsupported Mac, follow the steps carefully:
Go to ļ£æ Apple menu and choose āSystem Preferencesā
Choose āSiriā preference panel and make sure Siri is enabled
Now go to the āKeyboardā preference panel and to the āDictationā tab and check the box for āDictationā to ON and then check āUse Enhanced Dictationā as well
Next go to the āAccessibilityā system preference panel and choose āDictationā from the sidebar, and check the box for āEnable dictation keyword phraseā and type in āHeyā * and then click the āDictation Commandsā button
Check the box for āUse advanced commandsā then click the + plus button
Configure the advanced Dictation command as follows:
When I say: āSiriā
While using: āAny Applicationā
Perform: Run Workflow -> Other -> Navigate to /Applications folder and select āSiri.appā
The configuration should look like the following, with the Perform action being āOpen Siri.appā, if everything matches choose āDoneā
Confirm that the āHey Siriā trick is working by saying āHey Siri whatās the weatherā or some other Siri command
Assuming you configured things as described above, you will now have a fully functioning āHey Siriā hands-free voice commanded assistant on a Mac, even if that Mac does not officially support Hey Siri.
Try it out yourself, it works! The response time and accuracy seems about the same as official Hey Siri on the Mac.
Basically anything fromĀ the Mac Siri commands listĀ will work when activated through voice this way.
* You can use any other dictation keyword phrase, weāre using āHeyā so that we can mimic the āHey Siriā feature. But you can use āOpen the pod bay doors Halā or something else if you feel like it.
How to Turn Off the Hey Siri Workaround on Older Macs
If you want to turn this off, you can return to the Accessibility Dictation section and uncheck the various boxes. If you want to disable Enhanced Dictation andĀ disable Siri in generalĀ you can do that too. You may have noticed that Enhanced Dictation downloads a 1.2gb package for it to work, but you canĀ remove Enhanced Dictation to reclaim that disk space on the Macif desired.
While this is obviously for the Mac,Ā enabling Hey Siri on iPhone or iPadĀ is easy and supports many devices, and you canĀ enable Hey Siri on Apple WatchĀ too. Whichever device you use Siri on you canĀ use many Siri commands from the listĀ and yesĀ even the funny Siri commandsĀ that are just plain goofy.
Intel Power Gadget for Mac is a processor monitoring tool that allows computer users to monitor the performance of an Intel processor in real-time. Intel Power Gadget will show you power and energy information in watts, the clock speed frequency of the CPU in GHz, the temperature of the CPU, and CPU utilization. Itās a handy utility for many reasons, and some Mac users may even use it as an alternative system monitor sort of like Activity Monitor.
Newer versions of MacOS can sometimes have trouble installing Intel Power Gadget, and many MacOS Mojave users have discovered the installation fails or the app doesnāt work. This installation failure is usually due to a default security setting in MacOS, and is easy to resolve.
How to Install Intel Power Gadget on MacOS
Installing Intel Power Gadget on the Mac is easy, though you may run into a Gatekeeper security block that can cause installation trouble. Hereās how to successfully install the tool in modern macOS releases:
Launch the āInstall Intel Power Gadget.pkgā from the mounted disk image as usual and start the installation process
If you see a āSystem Extension Blockedā message, click on āOpen Security Preferencesā, otherwise go to the ļ£æ Apple menu and choose āSystem Preferencesā followed by āSecurityā
Under the āGeneralā section of the Security preference panel, click the button to āAllowā the āsystem software from developer Intel corporation appsā which was blocked by Gatekeeper *
The Intel Power Gadget installer should proceed as usual and successfully install, if it fails then just run the āInstall Intel Power Gadget.pkgā package installer again
When finished, launch Intel Power Gadget from the /Applications folder as usual
If you run Intel Power Gadget while youāre using the Mac, you may notice that processor performance can change around quite a bit depending on what youāre doing and what sort of apps youāre using.
It is completely normal for the processor charts to be changing constantly, and youāll find that the processor clock speed may go up or down, as will both CPU temperature and power, typically correlated with processor utilization ā this makes sense as more processing utilization requires more power to have a higher clock speed, which raises the temperature of the CPU, and of course the opposite can happen as well with CPU speed lowering along with lower power and lower temperature and utilization when the Mac is less busy. If youāre interested in doing so, you can see this directly and test it yourself by running any CPU intensive task,Ā like the Terminal command āyesā, which is often used for stress testing a Mac (or any Linux PC):
As you can see the graphs for power, frequency, temperature, and utilization suddenly shoot way up as the āyesā command runs in the adjacent Terminal windowĀ as a stress test, which is normal and expected behavior for the processor.
Uninstalling Intel Power Gadget on Mac
Decide you donāt need Intel Power Gadget? Uninstalling Intel Power Gadget is quite simple. Simply navigate to the /Applications folder and open the Intel Power Gadget directory, then run the included āUninstaller.pkgā package file. This will remove the Intel Power Gadget application and the associated kernel extension from the Mac.
* If youāre a truly advanced Mac user and youāre bothered by these type of security measures causing installation issues, you can choose toĀ allow apps from anywhere in macOS by disabling Gatekeeper, though that is strongly not recommended for the vast majority of Mac users. There are quite a few apps that can fail to install because of the stricter security standards that are in place in modern macOS releases, and if youāre the type of person running Intel Power Gadget then you may encounter also aĀ similar issue with installing VirtualBox in MacOSĀ where the kernel driver fails to install, thereby preventing that app to work as well. Typically you canĀ bypass GatekeeperĀ on a one-off basis as discussed here, which is arguably the best approach, but you can also just turn it off completely if needed.
If youāre a Mac command line user you may have noticed that many frequently used commands entered into the Terminal (or iTerm) result in an āOperation not permittedā error message since updating to MacOS Mojave 10.14 or later. The āOperation not permittedā error in the Terminal can be seen after issuing even simple commands like using ālsā āmvā and ācpā within the users own directory, but also in many other directory locations on the Mac, and when trying to use manyĀ defaultsĀ commands. Obviously this type of error message makes navigating and using theĀ command lineĀ in MacOS Mojave to be quite difficult if not impossible for many purposes. Donāt worry, the Terminal is not broken in new MacOS versions.
This walkthrough will show you how to fix āOperation not permittedā error messages seen at the command line in Terminal for Mac OS in Mojave 10.14 or later.
How to Fix āOperation not permittedā Error in Terminal for Mac OS
Pull down the ļ£æ Apple menu and choose āSystem Preferencesā
Choose āSecurity & Privacyā control panel
Now select the āPrivacyā tab, then from the left-side menu select āFull Disk Accessā
Click the lock icon in the lower left corner of the preference panel and authenticate with an admin level login
Now click the [+] plus button to add an application with full disk access
Navigate to the /Applications/Utilities/ folder and choose āTerminalā to grant Terminal with Full Disk Access privileges
Relaunch Terminal, the āOperation not permittedā error messages will be gone
If you have not encountered the āOperation not permittedā error message in the Terminal of MacOS (Mojave 10.14 or later) yet, then itās likely because you havenāt wandered into a directory or file path that has the additional access restrictions (or that you donāt use Terminal, in which case this entire article is not for you).
While many of the various core System and root directories will throw error messages in macOS Terminal too, you can also find the error message even when trying to work in the users own Home directory, including in many of the user ~/Library/ folders, like ~/Library/Messages (where iMessage attachments and chat logs are stored in Mac OS) and ~/Library/Mail/ (where user-level mail plugins, mailbox data, and other Mail app data is stored), and many others.
You can test this yourself, before and after making the settings adjustment outlined above with a simple command like using ls on one of the protected folders:
ls ~/Library/Messages
If Terminal does not have Full Disk Access granted, you will see the āOperation not permittedā error message.
If TerminalĀ doesĀ have Full Disk Access granted, or if SIP is disabled, you will not see that error message in the MacOS Terminal.
In case you were wondering, yes that does mean there are actually two ways to fix the āOperation not permittedā errors you may encounter in MacOS Terminal; the first which we detail here is rather simple that grants additional access privileges to Terminal app, and the other is a bit more dramatic which involves disabling System Integrity Protection on the Mac which is generally not recommended and we wonāt specifically cover here, though simply disabling SIP and rebooting is typically enough to make the error go away if youād rather go that route.
The āOperation not permittedā message is one of a variety of command line errors you may encounter in Mac OS Terminal. Another frequently seen command line error is the the ācommand not foundā error message which can also be encountered in the Terminal for MacOS for a variety of different reasons as well.
Todayās the day, Mac users: the latest version of macOS, called Mojave (and officially itās version 10.14), is now available. Itās not a major revamp of the operating system (itās been a while since the Mac has had one of those), but it does add new features that can help you be more productive with your Mac.
That being said, you may be hesitant to upgrade. After all, what youāre using now works fine, and why risk the potential for problems? We hear you, and if you donāt want to upgrade right away, youāll be fine. But in case youāre on the fence, here are a few reasons why you should upgrade to macOS Mojave now.
MacOS Mojave Dark Mode is easier on the eyes
The first new feature Apple discussed at the 2018 Worldwide Developers Conference unveiling of Mojave, the first feature that the Mojave website highlights, and the first feature Iām covering here is Dark Mode, which uses darker colors for user interface elements like the toolbar and menus. Being first implies a sense of importance, but to some, Dark Mode may seem like an odd feature to highlight first. āYeah, so the Mac uses dark stuff. So what?ā
Think about how you use your Mac (or computers in general). When youāre looking at a computer screen, youāre basically staring at a light source. And if youāre like me, you do almost all of your work all day long while staring at this light source. With a traditional Mac UI, youāre usually using windows that are predominating bright white, and staring at the light for a while can cause eye fatigue.
A familiar Light Mode window in. macOS Mojave…
…and a new Dark Mode window.
Dark Mode feels a lot more comfortable to me, though I donāt feel more or less fatigued at the end of the day. (Thatās probably due to the fact that I make it a point to take quick āvisionā breaks every 30 minutes or so.) Some people think Dark Mode helps you focus on what youāre working on; I canāt say I agree or disagree, I donāt notice a difference in where my attention is at. But while Iām working, being in Dark Mode feels more pleasing, and I now have a preference for it. Iām also looking forward to more apps offering Dark Mode interfaces.
MacOS Mojave Continuity Camera
Before Continuity Camera, it took a bit of effort to get a photo or scan on to your Mac. With Continuity Camera, the process is a lot more efficient.
You can scan images directly into Notes.
In apps that support the feature, all you need to do is click in the area where you want your image to appear, and then go to the File menu and look for an option to import a scan or photo from your iPhone or iPad. Select it, and an indicator appear in your Mac app and your iOS deviceās camera automatically launches. You can then snap a pic or āscanā your document, and the result is automatically inserted in your document. So easy. Unfortunately, this feature doesnāt allow you to select a pic thatās already on your iOS device for placement in your document, but maybe thatās for a future update.
Continuity Camera works right now with Mojaveās bundled apps, like Notes, Mail, Messages, and in the Finder. It also works with Appleās Numbers, Pages, and Keynote. Look for third-parties to add this functionality soon.
Using an iPhone X to scan a receipt in Notes for Mac.
MacOS Mojave improved security features
Security isnāt a glamorous topic, but there are a few now security features that make Mojave an attractive upgrade.
Because of what I do for a living, Iām often downloading and trying new software, sometimes from developers with whom Iām not familiar. So I run a few utilities to keep an eye on whatās going on with my Mac. One of the utilities I use is OverSight, which flashes an alert any time an app wants to access the Macās FaceTime camera and microphone.
macOS Mojave now lets you know if apps are trying to access your Macās microphone, camera, and other items.
An OverSight-like feature is now built into Mojave that can alert you when an app wants to accessalong the camera and mic, as well as iTunes device backups, Time Machine backups, your Mail database, your Message history, your Safari data, and other data.
Even better is that Safari in Mojave has improved Intelligent Tracking Prevention. What this does is that it blocks attempts to track the websites that you visit. If you trigger one of these tracks (often by clicking on a comment button, or when you Like something on Facebook), Safari posts an alert to let you know that you need to allow tracking to continue on.
Mojave also has more features for managing password, such as the ability to create strong passwords, the ability to automatically enter in a security code that you get vis SMS, and password auditing. These are great features, but as a longtime 1Password user, I donāt think Iāll be giving it up for Mojaveās built-in features. I prefer 1Passwordās management tools, even though it means Iām not being efficient about my password usage.
MacOS Mojave Quick Look for quick image edits
As the family documentarian, itās my job to take pictures and videos of family events. But I donāt just shoot and then file away the results; I look at the pics and videos and edit them. Usually, theyāre easy edits, but it feels like a hassle to preview a file to see if it needs to be edited, and then open those files that do in an app.
Crop a photo directly in Quick Look. No need to open an app.
Mojave makes Quick Look most robust, providing simple editing tools so you donāt even need to open an app. Now when you preview an image (select it and then press the space bar), you can click on the Quick Actions icon between the Rotate icon and the Open in Preview button, and a set of editing tools appears. You can rotate in 90-degree increments and crop images, and thereās even a set of markup tools you can use to write notations. For audio and video, you can trim clips.
If you are perusing through dozens and dozens of photos and videos, the new Quick Look Quick Actions helps a ton with simple crops and trims. It can be a real time saver.
MacOS Mojave News, Stocks, Voice Memos, and App Store
If you frequently use the News, Stocks, and Voice Memos apps on your iPhone or iPad, then youāll probably find good use for them on your Mojave Mac. With the News and Stocks apps, your preferences can be saved to iCloud, so your topics, channels, watch list, and more are syncs between all your devices. Voice Memos can save your recording to iCloud so you can access them on any device.
The new News app in macOS Mojave.
Of these apps, Iāll get the most use out of the News app. It seems that people tend to rely on social networks to get their news, but with social networks, the people you follow are the arbiter of what shows up on your feedāand for a lot of people, thatās preferable. I like to have more control over the articles that are fed to me, and that includes topics that may not necessarily jibe with that of the people I follow. The News app allows you to set your sources and subjects, so you can get a feed thatās customized to your interests.
Apple has also redesigned the App Store, so itās easier to find apps. The company is also putting a more effort into your ability to learn about new software, by featuring App Store editorsā picks and curated app lists.
Group FaceTime: Coming soon to macOS Mojave
If these reasons arenāt compelling enough for you to upgrade to Mojave now, thereās a feature coming soon that will make you want to upgrade: Group FaceTime. When it becomes availableāApple says itāll be here later this fallāyouāll be able to do a group chat with up to 32 people using a Mac, iPhone, or iPad. If this feature was available now (and it worked well), itād be the number one reason why you should upgrade to Mojave.
Letās hope Group FaceTime comes to the Mac sooner than later.
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