This post tells how to reinstall USB fax modem capabilities on macOS Sierra, after Apple dropped support.
If dropping support for fax modems affects you negatively, please take the time to issue feedback at Apple's website.
To restore USB Fax Modem capability to Sierra, simply copy the files listed below from your old El Capitan install.
Here is this list of files you need:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.print.FaxPrefs.plist
/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/PrintCore.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Fax.ppd
/Library/Printers/Fax.ppd # copy /System/Library/Frameworks/.../Fax.ppd file to /Library/Printers
/usr/bin/fax
/usr/bin/efax
/usr/bin/efix
/usr/share/man/man1/fax.1
/usr/share/man/man1/efax.1
/usr/share/man/man1/efix.1
/etc/efax.rc
/usr/libexec/fax/coverpage.py
/usr/libexec/fax/faxnotify
/usr/libexec/fax/imagestopdf
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu extras/Fax.menu
/usr/libexec/cups/backend/fax
Here are the basic steps. I confirm that this works for me:
- This requires a Time Machine, Disk Utility, Carbon Copy Cloner, or other backup of your pre-Sierra image.
- Reboot your Mac with the Command-R recovery partition, and, if necessary (it should be if it's not), use Disk Utility to unlock and mount your encrypted boot drive.
- Open the Terminal, and disable SIP using the command
csrutil disable
. - Reboot the Mac normally.
- Use
cp -R
orrsync
to copy over all the files to your Sierra boot drive. Ensure that the files have no ACL's or extended attributes if necessary withchmod -N
andxargs -c
. Test withls -e
andxargs
. - Reboot your Mac with the Command-R recovery partition, and, if necessary (it should be if it's not), use Disk Utility to unlock and mount your encrypted boot drive.
- Open the Terminal, and enable SIP using the command
csrutil enable
. Do not ignore this step. - Reboot the Mac normally.
- Open the Directory Utility app from the Spotlight search tool, unlock with admin credentials, and enable the root account.
- In Safari, browse to your Mac's CUPS server at http://localhost:631, Administration>Add Printer, authenticate as root and follow the steps to add the printer with a URI that looks like fax://dev/cu.usbmodem9804243. This will be the same printer in the previous plist prefs file, /Library/Preferences/com.apple.print.FaxPrefs.plist. Specify the PPD file /Library/Printers/Fax.ppd.
- You should now see a working USB Fax Modem in System Preferences>Printers & Scanners.
- Open the Directory Utility app from the Spotlight search tool, unlock with admin credentials, and disable the root account.
Re: landline fax directly from document on Apple computer that has Sierra (using no fax machines, using no online faxing, just direct computer, landline faxing, no Internet), is it possible to attach a powered usb modem to iMac/Sierra 10.12.6, and to landline (this hardware stuff seems obviously easy and possible), and is there software (3rd party) that would be accepted by Sierra for sending and receiving faxes, and for keeping a fax database? (Similar to the way WFS (Windows Fax and Scan) does in W7Pro on pc's). Apple refuses to answer. Says it requires asking 3rd party modem companies if they have such software; Apple said it comes down to software. Does anyone know, is this correct, it's a matter of getting software that Sierra will accept? and is there any such software? In the instructions given above, I did not follow, not certain I'd trust myself to do it right, and not sure if you meant to copy those files from another Apple computer (I have a laptop that has Mavericks, not El Capitain) and paste them to the iMac/Sierra?