Help Desk
Stuck in macOS Recovery with a language you don’t speak? Here’s how to fix this
When you start up a Mac while holding down Command-R on the keyboard, the Mac boots into macOS Recovery. In this mode, you can run Disk Utility, access the command-line Terminal app, and reinstall the operating system. But what do you do if you restart your Mac into Recovery mode and a language appears other than one you know?
This doesn’t seem to happen at random, but it can occur when you’ve purchased a computer from someone who installed the system using another language, which can remain in place in the Recovery partition, a separately organized part of your startup drive. Fortunately, there are a few ways to resolve this.
• Choose the third menu from the left, which is labelled File when in English, and pick the first option, which is labelled Change Language in English. You should be able to select the language you want.
• Launch Terminal, which is in the fifth menu from the left, labelled Utilities in English. The apps have icons next to them, and Terminal is a little rectangle with a prompt in it. After Terminal launches, type sudo languagesetup and press Return. You can then select the language to use.
• If you have a Keyboard menu at the far right of the screen, you can select the one with a tiny UK flag to switch to English.
• If all else fails, you can reinstall macOS by restarting your Mac and then holding down Command-Alt-R. This will redownload installation files and prompt you for a language choice, while also upgrading the Recovery partition. It won’t overwrite your hard drive, but installs in place the latest version of OS that works on your computer.
Can you disable two-factor authentication on your Apple ID?
Two-factor authentication (2FA) provides an effective way to deter people from hijacking an online account. With 2FA, you supplement a password with something else – typically you enter a code that’s sent via a text message. The second factor means someone has to know both your password and have access to something you own – a phone number, a phone, or a computer – and dramatically reduces your exposure when password breaches inevitably happen.
Apple added 2FA for Apple IDs a few releases ago, an upgrade from its hastily constructed two-step verification, which it created after high-publicity cracks using social engineering of its iCloud service.
Apple’s implementation of 2FA is integrated into iOS and macOS, and I recommend that everyone enable it. However, some people may find it’s too much fuss or they have other difficulties making it work. (For Apple IDs that you don’t use with a physical device, but only for purchases, 2FA can be an honest pain, but it’s manageable.)
Until recently, you could opt to disable 2FA, although you had to go to the Apple ID website to turn it off. Apple quietly removed disabling 2FA as an option, and I’ve started to hear from people about this recently when they went to turn it off and found they could not.
It looks like Apple quietly removed that option in a later release of iOS 10 and macOS 10.12 Sierra, according to reports online. Apple’s support page for 2FA (fave.co/2xDP5mW) notes that within the first two weeks of enabling 2FA, you can still revert. But after that, no can do: “Certain features in the latest versions of iOS and macOS require this extra level of security, which is designed to protect your information.”
I respect this move forward for security’s sake, but I also think Apple shouldn’t have taken it without a lot of disclosure, explanation, and potential grandfathering of those who had opted in. It doesn’t enumerate what features require this.
And Apple only provides the
