Maintaining Your MacA Joe On Tech Guide

Joe Kissell

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This version was published on 2016-09-20

ISBN 978-0-9785740-5-5

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Contents

Read Me First . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1What’s New in Version 1.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

A Note to Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Quick Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Chapter 1 Start on the Right Foot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Install the Latest Version of macOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Turn On Automatic App Store Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Update Third-Party Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Clean Out Accumulated Cruft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Turn Off Unneeded Login Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Set Up a Backup System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Test Your Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Run Disk Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23Use a Surge Protector or UPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Update Weak Passwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Use Optimized Storage in Sierra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Consider a Maintenance Utility (or Two) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Read Me FirstWelcome to Maintaining Your Mac: A Joe On Tech Guide, version 1.2, published in September 2016by alt concepts inc. This book was written by Joe Kissell and edited by Caroline Rose.

Macs, like all machines, are prone to break down eventually—in either a physical sense (a componentgoing bad) or a logical sense (files becoming corrupted, apps misbehaving). You can reduce the risk ofsuch problems, and minimize the damage when they do occur, with a regular maintenance regimen.This book contains simple steps you can take to keep your Mac humming.

Copyright © 2016, alt concepts inc. All rights reserved.

Updates

Minor updates to the electronic versions of this book will be free, and major updates will be availableat a discount to anyone who purchased a previous version. Check for updates using the link at thetop of the About This Book chapter.

Basics

Here are a few basic concepts that will help you read this book:

• Links: All blue text in this ebook is hot, meaning you can click (or tap) it, just like a link onthe web. When you follow a link to a different part of the ebook, you can return quickly towhere you were by using your ebook reader’s “back” feature. For example, in iBooks in iOS,tap the “Back to” link in the lower-left corner of the screen, or in Preview on a Mac, chooseGo → Back or press �-[.

Many of the URLs are shortened (like alt.cc/abc) to make them more compact and easierto type, especially for anyone reading this book on paper. These short URLs automaticallyredirect you to the original target destination.

• Menus and preferences:Where I tell you to choose a menu command, I use an abbreviatedformat. For example, “Choose File → New Folder” means “Choose New Folder from the Filemenu.” Similarly, I use the → notation for navigating to panes, tabs, and other views, especiallyin Preferences windows: “Go to System Preferences → Security & Privacy → General.”

• Finding System Preferences: I sometimes refer to settings in System Preferences that youmay want to adjust. To open System Preferences, click its icon in the Dock or choose Apple� → System Preferences. When the System Preferences window opens, click the icon of thepane whose settings you want to adjust.

Read Me First 2

• Path syntax: This book occasionally uses a path to show the location of a file or folder in yourfile system. For example, the path to the Terminal utility in the Applications folder’s Utilitiessubfolder is /Applications/Utilities/Terminal. The slash at the start of the path tells youto begin at the top level of the disk. Some paths begin with ∼ (tilde), which is a shortcut forthe current user’s home directory; for example, if my username is joe, my Documents folderis at ∼/Documents, which is another way of saying /Users/joe/Documents.

Note: If you’re running 10.12 Sierra or later, macOS gives you the option to move your Desktopand Documents folders to iCloud Drive. (You can enable or disable this in System Prefer-ences → iCloud by clicking the Options button next to iCloud Drive and selecting or deselectingDesktop & Documents Folders.) When this feature is enabled, ∼/Documents no longer points to/Users/your-username/Documents but rather to iCloud Drive/Documents.

• User Library: The user’s Library folder (∼/Library) is normally hidden. To see it in theFinder, hold down the Option key and choose Go → Library. From there you can navigate toany subfolder of ∼/Library.

• Disks, drives, and volumes: When I use the term disk, I’m referring generically to a datastorage device, which could be a hard drive, an SSD (solid-state drive) or other solid-statestorage, or a Fusion drive (which combines a hard drive with solid-state storage). Each disk(of whatever sort) contains one or more volumes, which appear in your Finder as disks. Yourstartup volume is the one your Mac boots from—named Macintosh HD by default.

• macOS vs. OS X: Apple called its desktop operating system “Mac OS X” from 10.0 Cheetahthrough 10.7 Lion; it was “OS X” from 10.8 Mountain Lion through 10.11 El Capitan; and asof 10.12 Sierra, Apple’s term is “macOS.” For simplicity, I mostly stick with “macOS” in thisbook, except when referring to specific older versions.

What’s New in Version 1.2

This book is based on an earlier title of mine called Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, whichwas last updated in 2012 and has now been retired. With the kind permission and cooperation of thefolks at Take Control Books, I “adopted” that book in 2015 and gave it a new title, a new look andfeel, and totally updated content.

Version 1.2 is a minor update, mainly to include information on features in Sierra. The mostsignificant changes are:

• Added the topic Use Optimized Storage in Sierra• Added mentions of Hazel and Sierra’s Optimized Storage to Empty Your Trash• Updated the Repair Permissions discussion to make it more apparent that this capabilitydisappeared starting with El Capitan

A Note to ReadersThank you for purchasing this book. If you find it helpful, you’re sure to enjoy the articles, videos,and other resources at Joe On Tech (joeontech.net). Joe On Tech is all about improving yourrelationship with technology. As such, the site won’t bombard you with ads and other annoyances.You’ll just find quality information, supported mainly by the sales of books like this one.

This book is one of four I’ve written that involve keeping your Mac healthy and fit. Inevitably, theyall overlap somewhat, but they have different emphases:

• This book focuses on preventive maintenance: avoiding future problems, reducing clutter,making your Mac easier to use, and monitoring its ongoing health.

• Speeding Up Your Mac (alt.cc/suym) goes into great detail about ways to increase your Mac’sperformance, returning it to (or even surpassing) the speed it had when it was brand new.This includes finding and taming rogue processes, improving disk and CPU responsiveness,installing hardware upgrades, optimizing your wireless network, and many other tasks thatcontribute to overall speed.

• Troubleshooting Your Mac (alt.cc/tym) is about solving problems that prevent your Mac fromoperating properly. It includes basic troubleshooting procedures, ready-made solutions tocommon complaints, and techniques that can help you diagnose and treat issues the bookdoesn’t cover specifically.

• Backing Up Your Mac (alt.cc/buym) provides detailed guidance on protecting your Mac’s dataagainst any potential catastrophe, from theft and fires to simple user error. You’ll learn notonly how to keep your data safe but also, crucially, how to recover all your data if and whendisaster strikes.

I’d like to let you know about future updates to this book, new Joe On Tech guides, and other useful,relevant information. If you haven’t already done so, please sign up for joeMail (alt.cc/joemail),my free, low-volume, no-spam mailing list. You can also follow @joeontech on Twitter (twit-ter.com/joeontech).

And, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to contact me using the form atjoeontech.net/contact. I look forward to hearing from you.

Joe KissellSan Diego, CaliforniaSeptember 2016

IntroductionBack in the early 2000s, I went to the dentist for the first time in many years. After skipping dentalvisits for far too long, I felt increasingly reluctant to schedule an appointment. I could just hearthe dentist chiding me, “Ah, I can see you haven’t had your teeth cleaned properly in five years. Forshame!” Themore time passed, theworsemy embarrassment grew, and finally it took actual pain anda visible hole in a tooth to overcome it. So I was disappointed, but not surprised, to learn that I hadseveral cavities and needed a root canal. The dentist was kind and understanding but neverthelesspointed out repeatedly that this visit might have been much less painful (and less expensive) had Iflossed every day and gone for my semiannual checkups as I knew I should have.

I tell you this story not merely to urge proper dental hygiene but because maintaining your Mac—like maintaining your teeth, your car, your health, or your home—is a good habit whose rewards arehaving fewer problems later on and being able to recover more easily from problems that do arise.You can sometimes get away without doing any maintenance for a few months or perhaps muchlonger, but you risk losing data, wasting time, and having to spend a great deal of money repairingor replacing your computer.

This book teaches you the most important and useful maintenance tasks you should perform toincrease your chances of keeping your Mac in tip-top operating condition throughout its lifetime.I’ve organized the tasks according to their frequency: what you should do daily, weekly, monthly, andyearly, as well as some important initial steps, some things you should do when a macOS upgradeappears, and some tasks you might want to avoid, contrary to conventional wisdom. If you followthese recommendations diligently, you’ll dramatically decrease the likelihood of serious problems.And if problems do occur, you’ll be far more likely to recover from them gracefully.

I want to make a few disclaimers up front:

• There’s no such thing as the One True Way to maintain your Mac. Everyone’s situation isunique, so you may need to adapt these instructions to suit your needs—perform certain tasksmore often or less often, skip tasks that don’t apply to you, and so on. Take these instructionsas guidelines, as a starting point to determine your own maintenance regimen.

• No amount ofmaintenance can guarantee that you’ll never have any problems.Manufacturingdefects, malfunctioning software, user errors, and other mishaps can and do occur. Propermaintenance should, however, minimize both the number and the severity of problems youexperience.

• This book does not cover troubleshooting or repair; the focus is on preventing problems, notfixing them. If your Mac crashes, loses data, fails to start up, or otherwise behaves improperly,I refer you to my book Troubleshooting Your Mac (alt.cc/tym).

Introduction 5

This version of Maintaining Your Mac is geared toward people using 10.9 Mavericks or later,including 10.12 Sierra. The majority of the information in this book also applies to earlier versions ofOS X. Even so, note that one of my first suggestions is to upgrade your Mac to run the latest versionof the operating system, which is likely to contain fewer bugs than earlier versions.

To see if there’s anything new that you need to know since this book was released or if there’sa newer version of this book, check for updates using the link at the top of the About This Bookchapter.

The tasks in this book are easy, and they get easier the more you do them. So start developing thosegood maintenance habits right now. And don’t forget to floss every day!

Quick StartThis book describes a step-by-step process for maintaining your Mac. You may do the tasks withina chapter in any order, but I strongly suggest first following the steps in Start on the Right Foot.

Get ready:

• Get your Mac into the best possible shape by updating software, getting rid of old files, settingup a backup system, and performing other preliminary tasks. Read Start on the Right Foot.

Perform periodic maintenance tasks:

• Every day, update your backup, download software updates, and empty your inbox. SeePerform Daily Tasks.

• Once a week, perform maintenance such as cleaning up your desktop, backing up your harddrive, and installing software updates. See Perform Weekly Tasks.

• Once a month, empty your Trash, check your disk for errors, test your backups, do some lightcleaning, and exercise your notebook’s battery. See Perform Monthly Tasks.

• Once a year, give your Mac a good cleaning inside and out, make extra archival backups, getrid of extraneous files, check your UPS battery, and more. See Perform Yearly Tasks.

Save time by skipping unnecessary work:

• Learn why you can probably avoid six common maintenance tasks in Maintenance Tasks toSkip.

Handle macOS upgrades with ease:

• Learn what you need to know to be ready for the next version of macOS in New Releases ofmacOS.

Avoid or fix problems:

• Catch potential problems early, or troubleshoot them if need be. See Monitor Your Mac’sHealth and Learn More.

Chapter 1 Start on the Right FootWhether you’ve just unpacked a shiny newMac or you’re hoping to get an older machine into shape,your first step should be to perform some initial cleanup and preparation tasks. These tasks will helpyour Mac run better now and will make ongoing maintenance tasks easier.

Install the Latest Version of macOS

If your Mac is already running the latest version of macOS, good for you! Skip to Turn On AutomaticApp Store Updates (next). If not, your first step should be to upgrade.

SomeMacs introduced as long ago as 2007 can still run OS X 10.11 El Capitan, while Macs introducedin late 2009 ormore recentlywill be able to runmacOS 10.12 Sierra. (And, frankly, if yourMac ismorethan seven or eight years old, you might want to think about buying a new model.) Since Apple nolonger charges for operating system upgrades and your Mac most likely supports the latest version,you should seriously consider installing it.

Every release of macOS includes dozens if not hundreds of bug fixes to prevent crashes or othererrors and to patch security holes. That fact alone is reason enough to keep up to date. In addition,Apple constantly introduces useful new features, and some newer software runs only on recentversions of the operating system. Often, doing nothing more than updating your system softwarecan eliminate a wide range of problems—and prevent others.

Operating system updates fall into two categories: major and minor. Major updates (more properlyknown as upgrades) change the operating system’s name (as in Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan,and Sierra) and increment the digit(s) after the first decimal point in the version number: 10.0, 10.10,and 10.11 were all major updates. Minor updates change the number after the second decimal point;for example, 10.11.1, 10.11.2, 10.11.3, and 10.11.4 were minor updates.

You should always download and install every minor update, because minor updates focus on bugfixes. (However, I suggest waiting a few days after an update appears to make sure it doesn’t containany serious errors; see Check Software Updates, later.) The easiest way to do so is to use the automaticupdate features in the App Store app (see Turn On Automatic App Store Updates, next). Majorupgrades are less urgent, especially when they focus on new features; nevertheless, since they alsofix numerous bugs, you should install them as soon as it’s convenient. Read New Releases of macOS,later, for details.

Some Mac users, having heard horror stories of half-baked releases that cause as many problems asthey fix, feel anxious when software updates appear. Major errors can sneak into system updates, butthis happens rarely, and usually Apple resolves such problems promptly. In addition, many errorsthat appear to be update-related are in fact the result of existing problems on the user’s Mac, minor

Chapter 1 Start on the Right Foot 8

issues such as outdated third-party apps, or even (gasp!) user errors. I can’t guarantee a softwareupdate will never break anything, but in my experience the benefits of updates overwhelminglyoutweigh the risks—especially if you maintain good backups (see Set Up a Backup System).

Turn On Automatic App Store Updates

Updates to macOS itself, all Apple software, and many third-party apps are handled by the AppStore app. This gives you just one place to check for the majority of your updates. You can configurepreferences that cause the App Store to download (and optionally install) these software updateswithout any manual checking. This is the easiest way to keep your Mac up to date with bug fixesand minor enhancements, and I strongly recommend that you use it.

After you install Mavericks or later, macOS prompts you to turn on automatic updating. Whetheryou did that or not, you should confirm that it’s (still) on and that it’s configured optimally.

How automatic you want to make updating is up to you. I recommend that you decline automaticupdates to macOS itself, and that you give careful thought to whether you want the App Storeto update individual apps without intervention. (In both cases, you might feel safer making this aweekly task; see Install App Store Software Updates.) However, downloading updates automaticallyand displaying alerts when they’re available is certainly a good idea.

To configure automatic App Store updates:

1. Go to System Preferences → App Store (Figure 1).

Chapter 1 Start on the Right Foot 9

Figure 1: Configure automatic software updates on the App Store preference pane.

2. Make sure the “Automatically check for updates” checkbox is selected. You can then selectany or all of the following:

• Download newly available updates in the background. The App Store notifies youof updates and also downloads them automatically so you can install them as soon asyou’re ready.When a notification appears, click Install to install the update immediately;click Later and then choose Try in an Hour, Try Tonight, or Remind Me Tomorrow fromthe pop-up menu to “snooze” the reminder; or click the notification itself to open theApp Store and see which updates are available.

• Install app updates. The App Store silently updates apps automatically after they’redownloaded (except those requiring you to quit an app or restart yourMac). If this makesyou nervous, leave the checkbox deselected; we’ll return to this topic whenwe get to yourweekly maintenance tasks.

• Install macOS (or OS X) updates. This setting first appeared in 10.10 Yosemite. Itdoes the same as “Install app updates,” except that it updates macOS itself. You may beprompted to restart your Mac to complete these installations. Because macOS updates

Chapter 1 Start on the Right Foot 10

are an especially big deal, I suggest that you deselect this checkbox.• Install system data files and security updates. The App Store automatically (withoutprompting you) installs these essential updates—but only after they’ve been available inthe App Store for three days.

Tip: As I said earlier, you may want to avoid installing new software updates for a few daysso you can verify that they don’t contain any major errors. Because the “Install system datafiles and security updates” setting includes a built-in three-day delay, in my opinion it’s safeto leave it checked—especially since the alternative is to live with known security flaws fora longer time.

• Automatically download apps purchased on other Macs. This isn’t a matter ofupdating, but rather lets you ensure that any app you purchase on one of your Macsis automatically installed on the others.

3. To perform an immediate check, click Check Now. The App Store informs you if new softwareis available. If it finds some, it displays an alert; you can select any or all of the updates forimmediate installation, defer them to later, or remove them from the list. For details, readInstall App Store Software Updates.

4. Close System Preferences.

According to your preferences, the App Store periodically checks for new software. Proceed as instep 3 if it finds anything new. (You can also check for updates at any time by choosing Apple� → App Store.)

Software Update by SatelliteIf you have satellite-based internet access, check with your provider to see if you have a dailydownload limit. Some Apple software updates are quite large, and if they cause you to exceed yourdaily download limit your internet access can become quite slow for the next day.

Manual Updates of macOS?All updates to macOS are available not only through the App Store but also on Apple’s website,so you can download them manually if you like (alt.cc/aa). Among other things, this enables youto decide whether to use a standard (or “delta”) updater, which requires the most recent previousrelease of macOS, or a “combo” updater, which updates any previous version of the major systemrelease (for example, 10.11.0 or 10.11.1) to the new version (say, 10.11.5). Combo updaters are alwayslarger than delta updaters.

Chapter 1 Start on the Right Foot 11

Why should you care? On a few occasions users have found that using the delta updaters (whethermanually or via the App Store) for some reason left out essential files, preventing proper operationof some OS X features, whereas these files were included when the same users applied the comboupdater. Although I’ve never had problems with the delta updaters, anecdotal evidence suggeststhat you may have a slightly lower risk of problems if you manually download the combo updaterfor each macOS update instead.

Update Third-Party Software

Software bugs are a fact of life, but in general, apps improve with each release. You can avoid, orsolve, many problems by making sure you have the latest version of every app installed.

Note: In some cases, getting the latest version of an app means spending hundreds of dollars. Ifyou can’t afford the absolutely latest version, you should at least install the latest free update youcan find. This may require some searching on the company’s website; earlier updates may not befeatured as prominently as the most recent update.

Software from the App Store

If you enabled “Install app updates” in the previous topic (Turn On Automatic App Store Updates),they’ll happen automatically. If not, or if you don’t want to wait for an automatic check, you canmanually check for and apply App Store updates:

1. Open the App Store app (in /Applications). If any updates are available, the Updates iconon the toolbar (as well as the App Store’s Dock icon) displays a badge with the number ofupdates.

2. Click Updates on the toolbar to display a list of available updates.3. To update a single app, click the Update button next to it. Or, to update all the listed apps at

once, click Update All.4. If prompted, enter your Apple ID and password and click Sign In.

The App Store downloads and installs the updates.

Chapter 1 Start on the Right Foot 12

Other Third-Party Software

Non-Apple software that doesn’t come from the App Store must employ a separate updatemechanism. Happily, most modern apps contain an update feature. Unhappily, they don’t all workthe same way. Some check for updates every time they’re launched, or on a fixed schedule, whileothers check only on demand; of those that do check automatically, not all have this feature turnedon initially. Some apps can download and install new versions of themselves automatically, whileothers simply download a disk image and expect you to open it and run the installer (or drag anupdated version of the app to your Applications folder) yourself; still others do nothing but open awebpage with links to updates you can download manually.

In an ideal world, updates would require no intervention other than a single click to confirm thatyou’re aware of, and approve of, the installation; everything else would happen automagically.Because only a minority of apps currently offer that level of automation, though, you may haveto perform some extra steps.

I discuss ongoing updates ahead in Check Software Updates and Check for Other Third-PartySoftware Updates. For now, do just two things:

• Make sure your software is up to date. In each non–App Store app that you use frequently,look for a Check for Updates command (the wording may vary). Such commands usuallyappear in the application menu (the one bearing the app’s name), the Help menu, or thePreferences window. If you can’t find such a command, visit the developer’s website.

Tip: Remember to check for updates of preference panes, status menus, plug-ins, and other systemenhancements. These types of software often lack an automatic update feature.

• Turn on any automatic update features your apps may have. Again, check each app’sPreferences window for a checkbox that enables scheduled updates, and if you can choosehow often to check, pick the most frequent option.

Gripe: Some apps check for updates whenever you launch them, and display an intrusive alerteach time just to tell you that no updates are available. Ugh! An alert of that sort should appearonly after a manual check for updates. In such cases, I either turn off automatic checking or changeit to a weekly or monthly check.

Chapter 1 Start on the Right Foot 13

Clean Out Accumulated Cruft

The term “cruft” is hacker slang for digital detritus—obsolete, extraneous, or otherwise useless filesthat have accumulated on your disk over time and now do nothing but take up space. By removingcruft, you can recover valuable disk space; increase the efficiency of Spotlight searches, backups,upgrades, and disk diagnostics; and reduce the chance of software incompatibilities.

Note: This step may not apply if you have a brand-new Mac, but even a few months of use cangenerate a surprising amount of cruft.

What counts as cruft and how much of it you should remove are somewhat subjective matters.Before I get into specifics of what to delete or how, I want to expand a bit on the goals of this step:

• Avoid running low on disk space. macOS requires a certain amount of breathing room forwriting temporary files, using virtual memory (in which a portion of your disk substitutes forphysical RAM), and other tasks. If your Mac’s disk is nearly full, your overall performancemay deteriorate sharply as macOS runs out of room for these files. (This deterioration is morepronounced with hard drives than with SSDs.)

I want to emphasize that this condition occurs only when you’re quite low on disk space. Howlow is “quite” low? My rule of thumb is that the free space on your disk should always be atleast 6 GB or twice the amount of RAM installed, whichever is larger. If you have hundreds ofgigabytes (or more) of free space, then regardless of how many files are on your disk, deletingfiles won’t have a noticeable effect on overall performance.

Of course, you fill up more disk space as you use your Mac, so it’s best to leave yourself anextra margin of error so that you aren’t constantly bumping into the danger zone. Supposethat your Mac has 8 GB of RAM, that you therefore want to have at least 16 GB of free spaceon your disk, and that you currently have 20 GB of free space. That’s enough for now, butdownload a single HD movie from iTunes and you’ll be in trouble again. So, for practicalreasons, I suggest clearing enough space that you can use your Mac normally for a month ormore without hitting your limit.

• Increase efficiency. Suppose you do a Spotlight search for a certain term and it turns upthousands of matches, but most of those matches are useless files—downloads you no longerneed, duplicate files, obsolete versions of documents you’ve since updated, and so on. Nowyou have to waste time wading through those matches to find the item you want. If your diskcontains fewer of the files you’re sure you’ll never need, every search you perform can bemore efficient.

The same goes for other common tasks. Backing up your disk—and finding files in yourbackups when you need to restore missing data—can take much longer than it should if youhave lots of extraneous files. When you upgrade to a new version of macOS, run disk utilities,

Chapter 1 Start on the Right Foot 14

or migrate to a newMac, the more files there are, the longer these processes will take. If manyof these files are superfluous, getting rid of them can increase your efficiency and that ofnumerous apps and tasks.

• Avoid software incompatibilities. I don’t know about you, but I download new softwareconstantly—especially system enhancements such as preference panes, status menus, andother utility apps and background processes. Often I just install a demo version to try it out fora few days, lose interest, and forget about it. Then, months or years later, I upgrade macOS andfind that something doesn’t work right because a third-party app I installed a long time agoisn’t compatible with the new version of macOS (or with other software I’m actively using).By deleting stuff you’re no longer using, you reduce the chances of such incompatibilities.

Another reason to delete unneeded software is performance. If apps are running in thebackground but you aren’t actively using them, they’re still using up RAM and CPU resources,which means they can slow down the other activities you use your Mac for.

Because I’ve written quite a few books about upgrading OS X/macOS (see Buy Take Controlof Upgrading to…) and have encountered many such software conflicts during my testing, Ialways recommend de-crufting as part of one’s upgrade process. But an even better idea is toweed out any software you don’t need—right now and as a yearly task. In addition to avoidingincompatibilities, you’ll free up the disk space used by those apps; and, if they were runningin the background without being used, you may also improve your Mac’s performance.

To summarize, if you’re running low on empty disk space, eliminating cruft is crucial. But even ifyou have tons of free space, you can improve your Mac’s efficiency and performance by deletingunnecessary items—especially unused apps (as opposed to user-created files).

Tip: I strongly recommend making a full backup before deleting files, in case you accidentallydelete something important. See Set Up a Backup System and Update Your Bootable Duplicate.

Is It Cruft?

Now that you know the why of cruft removal, it’s time to figure out which of the files on yourMac—which may well number in the millions—fit that description. Your time is valuable, and it’snot fruitful to spend countless hours pondering every file. You want to concentrate on the biggestoffenders, get rid of them, and move on to the next task. Here are some quick guidelines.

Almost Definitely Cruft

With only occasional exceptions, most people should consider the following disposable, so Irecommend that you drag any such items to the Trash:

Chapter 1 Start on the Right Foot 15

• Software you don’t use: Look in /Applications (and in /Applications/Utilities) for anysoftware you’ve installed over the past year but never use. (Expired demo software, anyone?)Many apps also store components in the /Library or ∼/Library folder (or any of numeroussubfolders); if you have lots of time on your hands, you can scan those folders for items you’resure you don’t need anymore and delete them.

Tip: Some apps come with their own uninstallers; if so, running that uninstaller is the best wayto remove the app. For apps that don’t include uninstallers, see the sidebar Uninstaller Utilities foradvice.

Warning! Avoid deleting anything whose purpose you’re uncertain about. In particular, neverdelete anything in /System. And remember: you’re doing this to reduce clutter, not as a matter oflife or death, so don’t be too ruthless when choosing what to delete.

• Duplicates: If you have two or more identical copies of a single file on your Mac, all butone of them is almost certainly cruft. If you need a file to appear in multiple places fororganizational reasons, you can create an alias (�-Option-drag a file to a new location, orchoose File → Make Alias in the Finder and then drag the alias to another folder). The easiestway to locate duplicate files is to use a utility. My personal favorite duplicate finder is Gemini2 (alt.cc/1w, $19.99). Other examples are Chipmunk (furry-rodents.com, $14.99) and Tidy Up(alt.cc/tu, $29.99).

• Old downloads: If you download software and install it, you can then delete the installer (ordisk image). For that matter, if you’re running low on disk space, anything you’ve downloadedthat you could download again if needed is a candidate for deletion. (In Sierra, after yourinstall software on a downloaded disk image, macOS asks if you want to delete the disk image.It’s a handy way to keep this sort of clutter from building up.)

• Old log files: Many apps (and built-in macOS processes) write log files that can be used fortroubleshooting later on. Sometimes these are automatically compressed, pruned, or purged;other times not. Although logs can occasionally be handy when tracking down a bug, fewMac users ever look at these files at all, and you can safely delete them. Look for log files in∼/Library/Logs, /Library/Logs, and /var/log (for this last one, choose Go → Go to Folderin the Finder, enter /var/log in the dialog that appears, and click Go). Many maintenanceutilities, including CleanMyMac and OnyX, can also delete logs for you.

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Possibly Cruft

If you’re running low on disk space—or if you’re moving from a Mac with a large hard drive to onewith a smaller SSD—you should consider deleting additional items that are rarely if ever needed:

• Localization resources: macOS itself, and many individual apps, contain resources that letthem display their user interface in many different languages besides the one you normallyuse (probably English, since you’re reading this book). These resources may include help files,graphics, and other components that, collectively, occupy a lot of disk space. These resourcesdo no harm, but if you’re looking for a way to free up every last gigabyte of space, you cansafely remove them. A free tool that does only this task is Monolingual (alt.cc/34). Otherutilities that offer this feature include CleanMyMac, MacCleanse (alt.cc/2r, $29.95), and ElCapitan Cache Cleaner (alt.cc/2q, $9.99).

• Universal binary resources:Many older apps are packaged as universal binaries so that theycan run on both Intel-based Macs and PowerPC-based Macs. But since you’re using an Intel-based Mac (as you must be, since Mavericks and later don’t run on PowerPC chips), the extraresources in those apps to support PowerPC processors do you no good. You can’t delete theseresources manually, but apps like as CleanMyMac, MacCleanse, and El Capitan Cache Cleanercan safely remove them for you.

• Previously useful files you no longer need: Your desktop, along with your ∼/Documents

and∼/Downloads folders, are likely places for unneeded files, such as documents you createdfor a temporary purpose or old versions of documents that have since been superseded. Skimthe contents of these folders and any subfolders, looking for documents, disk images, andinstallers you no longer need, and drag such items to the Trash.

• Old, large files: The fact that a file is old doesn’t necessarily mean it’s useless, even if youhaven’t opened it for years. (I havemany thousands of old documents, photos, email messages,and other files that fit that description.) Likewise, large files you’re actively using are just fine,although your Mac may contain large files you’re unaware of and don’t need. And, if a file isboth old and large—I’m thinking of things like the source files for old iMovie projects, virtualmachines you no longer use, and movies you don’t plan to watch again—it’s likely to be cruft.You should consider deleting such files or at least moving them to an external drive so theydon’t bog down your Mac’s startup disk.

Utilities such as CleanMyMac and MacCleanse can help you track down old and large files.For a quick way to identify the largest files on your disk (without respect to their age), tryany of these free utilities: Disk Inventory X (derlien.com), GrandPerspective (alt.cc/1x), orOmniDiskSweeper (alt.cc/1y).

Note: Data that your web browser records, such as your browsing and search history, downloadhistory, and cookies, generally takes up a tiny amount of disk space and serves useful purposes.

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Although there may be privacy-related reasons to delete these records, don’t do it “just because.”See Delete Your Cookies for further discussion.

Not Cruft

Finally, a few things you shouldn’t consider deleting:

• Software you’re currently using or plan to use again someday• Caches: Caches serve a useful and important purpose, so you shouldn’t delete them indis-criminately. (For limited exceptions, see Consider Clearing Certain Caches.) It’s not harmfulto delete caches, though, and if you’re desperately low on space, doing so can be a quick (albeittemporary) fix.

• Files you created:Documents, email, photos, music, and other user-generated content shouldstay, unless you’re positive you no longer need it.

• Anything you’re unsure of: I said it before, but I want to reiterate that you shouldn’t deleteanything if you’re uncertain what it is or whether you need it. Err on the side of caution.

How to Delete Cruft

You can delete most of the items mentioned above manually, by dragging them to the Trash. In somecases, macOS may prompt you to enter an administrator password. When you’re finished deletingfiles, be sure to empty the Trash (choose Finder→ Empty Trash) to recover the previously occupiedspace.

Alternatively, you may want to Consider a Maintenance Utility (or Two), as I discuss later in thischapter. In particular, an uninstaller utility can come in handy for removing unwanted software.

Uninstaller UtilitiesIf you prefer not to muck around in your Library folders and elsewhere on your disk looking forindividual files to delete when you remove an unused app, consider using a utility that can do allthe hard work. Uninstallers can automatically delete files associated with particular apps (such asApplication Support files, login items, and preference files) without requiring you to find themmanually.

My personal favorite uninstaller, which also performs many other useful maintenance tasks, isCleanMyMac (alt.cc/1v, $39.95). I describe it in greater detail later in this chapter (see CleanMy-Mac). Here are a few other examples:

• AppBolish (alt.cc/sv, $9)• AppZapper (alt.cc/sx, $12.95)

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• CleanApp (alt.cc/sy, $14.99)

Although not a full-featured uninstaller like these others, Hazel (alt.cc/sz, $32) can automaticallyuninstall the supporting files for any app you drag to the Trash.

Turn Off Unneeded Login Items

macOS can run apps or open files automatically when any given user logs in; items set to open inthis way are called login items. You can add a login item manually—for example, to save yourself aclick or two by making sure your favorite apps run every time you log in.

Numerous apps also install login items—often without advertising that fact—so that backgroundservices they rely on are always available. Examples of apps that install background-only loginitems are BusyCal, Dropbox, LaunchBar, and CrashPlan.

Login items are useful, but they can also increase the time it takes to start your Mac (or switch users).In addition, the more apps you have running at once, the greater your RAM Usage and CPU Load.So I recommend checking to make sure you don’t have any login items you can do without.

To check your login items, follow these steps:

1. Go to System Preferences → Users & Groups.2. Select your account in the list on the left, and click Login Items (Figure 2).

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Figure 2: In the Login Items view, look for login items you no longer need and remove them.

3. Scan the list of login items for any you no longer use. If you find one, select it and click theminus button. Repeat as necessary.

Clicking this button removes the item from the list but does not delete the corresponding itemfrom your disk.

Tip: If you hover your pointer over an item in the Login Items list for a couple of seconds, a yellowhelp tag appears with that item’s complete path. This information may not tell you exactly whatthe item does, but it at least tells you where it is, which may provide important clues.

Set Up a Backup System

No amount of maintenance can guarantee that your hard drive will never crash, that your Macwill never be stolen, or that lightning will never strike your house. Any number of catastrophescould potentially imperil your computer and its data. Of course, you can replace a computer, but

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what about your email, photographs, music collection, tax records, and all the other importantinformation? To keep your data safe, you need good backups. If you’ve never taken the time toset up a proper backup system, the time is now!

I wish I could tell you that backing up your computer effectively is a simple matter of clicking afew buttons. But there’s more to it than that: understanding the various types of backup, choosingbackup hardware and software that has all the features you need, configuring your system, storingbackup media safely, and many other details. The good news, though, is that once you’ve set up abackup system, it should run happily with little intervention for months or years.

Because so much can be said about backups, I’ve written an entire book on the subject: Backing UpYour Mac (alt.cc/buym). If you have any doubts or questions about backing up, I recommend givingit a read. I think you’ll find it to be time (and money) well spent.

Although I can’t cover everything in the Backing Up book here, I can give you a brief summary. Forthe best compromise among data safety, cost, and ease of use, I generally recommend the following:

• Versioned backups: Backups that include previous versions of your files, and files you’vedeleted. Time Machine is one way to get these, but there are dozens of other options too,including CrashPlan (crashplan.com, free; cloud storage starts at $5/month), Data Backup(alt.cc/s4, $49), and QRecall (qrecall.com, $40).

Whichever app you use, it should store your backups on an external hard drive. If your backupapp doesn’t automatically back up your Mac on a fixed schedule (such as once an hour) orwhenever files change, make sure you schedule backups to occur automatically at least oncea day; more often is better.

• Bootable duplicate:On a second partition of your backup drive (or on another external drive),make a bootable duplicate (also called a clone) of your entire hard disk onto an external driveand update it at least once a week. Data Backup can make duplicates as well as versionedbackups; Time Machine, CrashPlan, and QRecall cannot. Two apps that specialize in bootableduplicates are:

– Carbon Copy Cloner (bombich.com, $39.99)– SuperDuper! (alt.cc/s0, $27.95)

• Offsite storage: Store an extra backup somewhere far away from your Mac, so your data isstill safe if your house burns down, your office is burglarized, or some other catastrophe wipesout your Mac and all your other equipment.

One way is to have a second physical backup drive. Store one drive in a safe place (such as afriend’s house or a safe deposit box), and once a week or so, swap the drives.

As an alternative to physically moving drives offsite, consider using an inexpensive internetbackup service that securely stores an extra copy of your files on a secure server. Examplesinclude:

– Backblaze (backblaze.com, $5/month per computer)– CrashPlan (crashplan.com, free; cloud storage starts at $5/month)– IDrive (idrive.com, prices start at $59.50/year for 1 TB of storage)

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Needless to say, you can back up your Mac in many other ways, and you can learn more by readingmy Backing Up book. But one way or another, get a backup system in place right now. Later in thisbook, I reiterate important backup tasks: Update Your Versioned Backup (daily); then Update YourBootable Duplicate and Rotate Physical Backups Offsite (weekly), and Test Your Backups (monthly).If you set everything up now, you’ll breeze through those periodic tasks, almost without noticingthem.

Test Your Hardware

Apple Hardware Test is an unusual program that performs a series of diagnostic tests on your Mac’shardware, including the AirPort card, logic board, hard drive, RAM, and video RAM. It doesn’trepair anything, and it doesn’t look for problems such as directory errors that are the province ofDisk Utility (see the next topic, Run Disk Utility). But it can identify subtle hardware defects thatcould later lead to serious problems.

Starting with Macs introduced in June 2013, Apple Hardware Test was superseded by a simpler tool,called Apple Diagnostics, which isn’t quite as thorough but does essentially the same thing—onlyfaster, and with a nicer user interface.

Either way, whether your Mac is fresh out of the box or years old, you owe it to yourself to makesure its major components are in good health, and this is the easiest (and cheapest) way to do so.

Apple Hardware Test (or Apple Diagnostics) comes in customized versions for everyMacmodel, andcan run only from an external boot drive (such as a DVD or a USB flash drive), from the invisibleRecovery HD volume installed as part of OS X, or (on newer Macs) over the internet. Even if youcould manage to copy it to your local disk or SSD, it wouldn’t run from there.

If you purchased your Mac before mid-2011, when 10.7 Lion was released, your Mac should haveincluded external media with Apple Hardware Test on it. Depending on your Mac model, AppleHardware Test may be included on the OS X Install Disc 1, the Applications Install Disc 2, the USBSoftware Reinstall Drive, or some other disc with a similar name. (Look for tiny lettering that says,“To use Apple Hardware Test, hold down the D key as the computer starts up.”) If you have such adisc or USB drive, find it now.

Shortly after Apple released Lion, the company began shipping newMacs without any external bootmedia at all. These Macs can still run Apple Hardware Test but normally do so from a special diskimage hidden on the RecoveryHD volume—and if that’s not available, they can run the program overthe internet, as I describe in a moment. Apple Diagnostics, like recent versions of Apple HardwareTest, comes on a hidden disk image and is also available to run over the internet if the disk imageisn’t available.

To run Apple Hardware Test or Apple Diagnostics, follow these steps:

1. If you have a disc or USB drive with Apple Hardware Test on it, insert it into your Mac. If yourMac shipped after Lion was released and did not include external boot media, make sure theMac is connected to the internet (via Ethernet) or that aWi-Fi network connection is available.

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2. Choose Apple � → Shut Down and wait for your Mac to shut down completely.3. Press the power button to turn on your Mac, and immediately press and hold the D key until

the Apple Hardware Test chooser screen appears or Apple Diagnostics starts, either of whichmay take aminute ormore. If Apple Hardware Test or Apple Diagnostics can’t be found on anylocal media and you’re using a Wi-Fi connection, select a wireless network when prompted,and enter its password (if any).

4. Select a language (using the mouse or the arrow keys) and click the right arrow button orpress Return. (For Apple Diagnostics, you only need to do this the first time you run it.)

5. For Apple Hardware Test:1. On the Hardware Tests tab, if there’s an Extended Test button, click it. If not, select the

checkbox Perform Extended Testing (Takes Considerably More Time) and click Test.2. Kick back with a good book while you wait for the test to complete. The screen may say

something like “Estimated time: 10–15 minutes, or longer depending on the amount ofmemory installed.” If your machine has lots of RAM, “or longer” could turn out to behours.

3. If the test uncovers no problems, the Test Results area either displays “No trouble found”or puts the word “Passed” next to all the applicable tests. If a problem does exist, a failuremessage appears along with advice for what to do next.

For Apple Diagnostics:• The test runs automatically, and takes just 2–3 minutes. At the end, it either says “Noissues found” or lists any problems along with information on what you should do aboutthem.

6. Click Restart to restart your Mac.

I recommend running the test again after installing RAM or any other new hardware inside yourcomputer, or if you begin to have inexplicable problems that ordinary disk utilities do not solve.

Other RAM TestsApple Hardware Test andApple Diagnostics aren’t the only tools that can check your RAM. Amongthe other utilities that can do this are:

• Atomic (alt.cc/77, $59.99)• Memtest OS X (memtestosx.org, command-line version free)• Rember (alt.cc/2j, free GUI utility based on Memtest OS X)• Techtool Pro (alt.cc/27, $99.99)

I’ve had bad RAM that Apple Hardware Test could identify but these others could not, whereascolleagues of mine have had the opposite experience. I’ve also had bad RAM that none of theseutilities could identify. Your mileage may vary!

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Be Sure You Have Enough RAMOne of the most important things you can do to speed up your Mac and reduce crashes is to be sureit contains enough RAM. Few new Macs ship with what I consider enough. Even though macOSand most apps can run in as little as 2 GB, in my experience performance degrades quickly withthat amount of RAM, and it’s far too little for most people these days.

How much RAM should you have? The answer depends on the type of Mac, the way you work,and your budget. On the one hand, I think everyone should have a bare minimum of 4 GB (unless,of course, your Mac came with less and can’t be upgraded—a problem with early MacBook Airmodels). On the other hand, more isn’t necessarily better. For example, only a few people runningthe most memory-intensive apps would benefit from putting the maximum of 64 GB in a Mac Pro.

In general, if your Mac can hold 16 GB or less, I suggest maxing it out (budget permitting). Goabove 16 GB if you spend all day working with heavy-duty graphics, video, or audio apps, if youfrequently find that yourMac slows downwhen you open lots of apps, if you run high-end scientificsoftware that performs complex mathematical operations, or if your computer functions as a serverin a high-demand environment.

Run Disk Utility

You know the old saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” With computers, though, things can bebroken without manifesting any obvious symptoms. You can nip many such problems in the budwith a simple procedure that looks for, and fixes, common disk errors that can crop up over timewithout your knowledge. (I recommend doing this not only as an initial troubleshooting step butalso as monthly maintenance.)

The instructions differ depending on which version of the operating system you’re running.

Use Disk Utility in El Capitan or Later

If your Mac is running El Capitan or later, follow these steps:

1. Open Disk Utility (in /Applications/Utilities).2. In the list on the left, select your startup volume (if it’s not already selected, which it most

likely is). Note that volume names are indented underneath the names of the physical deviceson which they reside (see Figure 3).

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Figure 3: Disk Utility indents volume names underneath device names; here, a volume is selected.

3. Click the First Aid button on the toolbar, and then click Run. Disk Utility examines your diskand attempts to repair it if necessary.

4. When the repair is finished, click Done and quit Disk Utility.

Note: If you’re unable to start your Mac normally, restart while holding down �-R to boot intoRecovery. Then select Disk Utility, click Continue, and pick up from step 2 above.

Use Disk Utility in Yosemite or Mavericks

In Yosemite or Mavericks, Disk Utility can’t repair the volume you booted from, so you’ll have touse a different procedure that requires a secondary startup volume (which can be OS X/macOSRecovery). Follow these steps:

1. If your secondary startup volume is on a physical device (such as a hard drive, a flash drive,or an SD card), attach it now; if it’s on a CD or DVD, insert it now.

2. Restart (see Restart Your Mac). If you’re using Recovery, hold down �-R until the gray Applelogo appears; if you’re using a startup CD or DVD, hold down the C key instead. Otherwise,hold down the Option key until icons for all the valid startup volumes appear on the screen,select your secondary startup volume, and press Return.

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3. Locate and open Disk Utility. If you’re starting in Recovery, you can simply select it in the listthat appears and click Continue. Otherwise, open it from /Applications/Utilities.

4. In the list on the left, select your startup volume. Note that volume names are indentedunderneath the names of the physical devices on which they reside.

5. Click Repair Disk.

Disk Utility examines your disk and attempts to repair it if necessary. When it’s finished, you canquit Disk Utility and restart your Mac normally.

In the (rare) event that Disk Utility encounters a serious problem that it cannot solve, you may needto use a commercial repair tool such as DiskWarrior (alt.cc/2k, $119.95).

Use a Surge Protector or UPS

If that AC cord coming out of your computer goes directly into a wall socket, you’re putting yourMac at the mercy of the power company, your home’s wiring, and all the things that can go wrongin between: brownouts, voltage spikes, lightning, you name it. Your Mac’s power supply is prettyrobust, but a single random power surge can still fry its circuits. Even when the electricity appearsto be flowing correctly, imperceptible fluctuations in the current can cause computer componentsto deteriorate more quickly than normal.

So please, take the basic precaution of using a surge protector. However, be aware that not allsurge protectors are equally good. In fact, some offer almost no protection at all (and price doesnot necessarily correlate to quality). Here’s what you should look for:

• A UL (Underwriters Laboratories) label with the words “Transient Voltage Surge Suppressor.”This wording indicates that the device meets the criteria for UL 1449, a performance standardwith well-defined and testable parameters.

• A good warranty that covers not only the protector itself but also the equipment attached toit, in the event of a surge. This warranty is perhaps more crucial even than the surge protectorhardware itself, because even the best products can sometimes fail.

A surge protector that has neither of these features is probably not worth paying for.

Note:A crucial component found in most surge protectors can wear out over time, and can becomedamaged if there’s a surge (even if it protects your equipment in the process). If you’ve had a majorpower surge, or if many years have gone by since you bought your surge protectors, you mightwant to consider replacing them.

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A step up from a surge protector is a voltage regulator (such as the APC LE600 Line-R; alt.cc/2x)or a power conditioner (such as the Furman PST-6; alt.cc/2y). Both types of product include surgeprotection but also keep the voltage to connected objects steadier (within a narrower range) evenwhen there aren’t surges.

Better still, consider buying a UPS (uninterruptible power supply). A UPS contains a battery withenough juice to power your computer for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, alongwith circuitry to convert the battery’s DC output to AC and switch over to the battery instantly andseamlessly in the event of a power outage. If the power goes out for more than a very brief period, theUPS sounds an alarm so that you’ll know to save your work and shut down your computer safelybefore the UPS’s battery goes out. (Some UPS units include USB cables that attach to your Mac,allowing you to configure an automated shutdown in System Preferences → Energy Saver → UPS;this pane doesn’t appear otherwise.) In addition to protecting your computer from power outages,most UPS units condition the electricity flowing through it and absorb power surges.

Here are a few examples of reputable UPS manufacturers:

• APC (apc.com)• CyberPower (cyberpowersystems.com)• Panamax (alt.cc/2z)• Tripp Lite (alt.cc/30)

Warning! Remember that lightning can travel through any cable attached to your Mac—Ethernet,USB, FireWire, phone line, or whatever. Make sure everything physically connected to yourMac is also plugged into a surge protector. Some surge protectors, UPS units, and other voltagemanagement products include ports for Ethernet, coaxial, and telephone cables.

Update Weak Passwords

Passwords are a fact of life in the wired 21st century. You probably have dozens or even hundredsof passwords, such as these:

• Your macOS administrator password• Passwords for iCloud and any other email accounts you may have• Passwords for websites and other online services• A password for your AirPort base station, and perhaps another one for your wireless network

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It’s easy to become lazy—choosing short, easy-to-type (and easy-to-remember) passwords andreusing the same password in multiple places. But both of these practices put your security andprivacy at risk. Passwords that are simple for you to remember and type also tend to be easy for anattacker (or the attacker’s sophisticated software) to guess. And if you reuse the same password inmultiple places, a password breach at one site could leave many of your accounts vulnerable.

I provide extensive advice about choosing, using, and changing passwords—and finding utilities tohelp you with these tasks—in my book Take Control of Your Passwords (alt.cc/tcyp). For now, I wantto make just three recommendations:

• If you don’t already use a password manager (a tool that generates, stores, syncs, and fills inpasswords for you), start now. 1Password (Figure 4; 1password.com) is my personal favorite;other good choices include Dashlane (dashlane.com), iCloud Keychain (built into OSX/macOSand iOS), LastPass (lastpass.com), and RoboForm (roboform.com).

Figure 4: 1Password can manage all your passwords for you.

• If you use the same password in more than one place, change all those passwords so they’reunique.

• Make sure all your passwords are long and random. (I offer a detailed explanation of howlong is long enough, and how random is random enough, in Take Control of Your Passwords.)As a rough rule of thumb, a 15-character password that contains upper- and lowercase letters,digits, and punctuation—in a random order chosen by a computer—should fit the bill.

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Tip: Some password managers, including 1Password and LastPass, have audit features that helpyou identify which of your existing passwords are too weak.

Each website, app, or device has its own procedure for changing passwords; I can’t begin to coverthem all in this book, but here are a few common places to look:

• To change your macOS user account password, go to System Preferences → Users & Groups.Select your username in the list on the left and click the Change Password button in thePassword view.

• To change the password associated with an Apple ID (used for iCloud, iTunes Store purchases,and many other purposes), go to appleid.apple.com and log in. Then click Change Password(under the Security heading) and follow the instructions.

• To change the password used by your AirPort base station (or Time Capsule) or your wirelessnetwork, open AirPort Utility, which is located in /Applications/Utilities. Select your basestation and click Edit, and then click Base Station. To change the base station’s password,enter and verify the new password and click Update. To change the password of your wirelessnetwork, click Wireless, enter and verify a password, and click Update.

For even more about the security and privacy implications of weak passwords, read these other twobooks of mine:

• Take Control of Your Online Privacy (alt.cc/tcop)• Take Control of Security for Mac Users (alt.cc/tcsmu)

Note: In earlier incarnations of this book, I recommended changing your passwords once a year. Ino longer do—to understand why, read Change Your Passwords.

Use Optimized Storage in Sierra

If your Mac is running Sierra, one handy way to free up disk space and reduce the rate at whichclutter accumulates is to use Sierra’s built-in Optimized Storage features. Sierra automatically purgesoutdated caches, logs, and other unneeded system files, and asks if you want to delete downloadeddisk images after installing software from them. In addition, you can enable several optional features:

1. Choose Apple � → About This Mac → Storage and click Manage.

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2. In the list on the left, select Recommendations (if it’s not already selected). The optionsavailable to you will vary based on which settings you’ve already selected, but by default,you can opt for any or all of the following:

• Store in iCloud:Tomove your Desktop andDocuments folders to iCloudDrive or enableoptimized storage of your iCloud Photo Library (or both), click Store in iCloud and followthe prompts. After your Desktop and Documents folders have been moved to iCloudDrive (and synced to Apple’s servers), macOS automatically removes older files fromyour Mac if you start running low on disk space—but the files’ icons remain in place,and if you attempt to open the files later, macOS downloads their content automatically.(Note that if you choose this option, you may need to purchase additional iCloud storagefrom Apple.)

• Optimize Storage: Click Optimize and follow the prompts to instruct macOS to removefrom your disk any movies or TV shows from the iTunes Store that you’ve alreadywatched (you can download them again later if you like). You can also have Maildownload only recent attachments, or no attachments at all—again, those can bedownloaded on demand if needed.

• Empty Trash Automatically: Click Turn On (and confirm by clicking Turn On again)to have macOS automatically remove items from your Trash that have been there for 30days.

• Review Files: Click this button to show large files, downloads, and other items youmight want to delete.

Once you’ve enabled any of these features, macOS will perform the necessary tasks in thebackground from then on. You’ll be less likely to run out of disk space, but Optimized Storage doesnot by any means eliminate the need for other types of manual maintenance.

Consider a Maintenance Utility (or Two)

You can perform nearly every maintenance task I discuss in this book manually—for example, bydragging certain files to the Trash or using utilities built into macOS such as Disk Utility andTerminal. On the other hand, there are numerous third-party utilities that make it quicker and easierto perform many of these tasks, and you might be able to save yourself considerable effort by usingthem.

Before I tell you about a couple of my favorite general-purpose utilities, however, I want to urge youto exercise skepticism and restraint.

If I believed that merely running an app were the answer to all your Mac’s maintenance needs, Iwouldn’t have bothered writing a whole book on the topic! Although maintenance apps can be quiteuseful if you know what you’re doing, they can also cause harm if used injudiciously—removingessential files and slowing down yourMac (which is, of course, the opposite of what they’re supposedto do). So I want you to choose utilities carefully and use them with both eyes open.

Here are some important facts to keep in mind when evaluating and using maintenance utilities:

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• Free disk space is not a panacea. I’ve read countless claims that one app or another willspeed up your Mac, solve numerous random problems, and keep your disk healthy simply byfreeing up disk space. Don’t believe it! Although it’s true that your Mac can slow down if freedisk space becomes critically low (as I explained in Clean Out Accumulated Cruft), above acertain amount of space there’s no direct correlation between free disk space and performance.For example, if you have a 500 GB hard drive with 495 GB occupied and 5 GB free, that isindeed a problem. But if you have a 3 TB drive with 495 GB occupied, you have over 2.5 TBfree, and deleting files won’t improve your performance at all (although, admittedly, there areother good reasons to delete files).

• Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. There are valid reasons to delete caches (seeConsider Clearing Certain Caches), logs, browser cookies, unneeded language resources, andother such items. But these files are not inherently problematic. Some utility developers wantyou to believe that all this stuff is nothing but clutter that bogs down your Mac, and thatyou should delete it all, wholesale, at every opportunity. Please don’t! As I discuss elsewherein this book, you should be highly selective in what you delete and when; regularly deletingall your caches, all your cookies, and so forth is a waste of time, and largely futile; it rarelysolves problems, it might reduce your performance, and your Mac will recreate most of thatstuff anyway.

• The default settings are almost always wrong. If you find that you need to delete certainapps or files and you want to use a utility to help you do so, by all means, go for it. Butmost maintenance utilities have a zillion options that are selected by default—the assumptionbeing that you’ll trust the app to do the right thing—and many of these default options aresuspicious if not downright harmful. My recommendation is to start by turning off all theautomatic options and then selectively turning on just the features you need (based in part onwhat you learn in this book).

• Prevention is different from problem-solving. Some maintenance apps blur the distinctionbetween preventing problems (what this book focuses on) and solving problems. The result isthat you might be tempted to waste time performing tasks that are useful for troubleshootingbut worthless or even harmful as prevention. (By analogy, taking antibiotics every day inan attempt to prevent bacterial infections is a terrible idea; you may suffer side-effects, killbeneficial bacteria, encourage the growth of antibiotic-resistant strains, and still get sick fromother types of bacteria.)

• Some maintenance tasks require a human touch. An app can empty your Trash or rotateyour logs on a schedule, but it can’t decide which apps, files, or email messages are importantto you, clean your screen, install a surge protector, or do any of numerous other tasks in thisbook that require thought, purchases, or background information only you could know.

With those qualifications in mind, I want to call your attention to two general-purpose maintenanceapps I use frequently myself and feel comfortable recommending. You can use either or both (there’ssome overlap in their features). I hasten to reiterate that these utilities are optional, and shouldn’t beused indiscriminately. But they’re nevertheless among the better examples of their respective genres.

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Note: You may also want to consider more-specific utilities for certain tasks in this book; althoughthese two apps together can perform a long list of maintenance tasks, they can’t do everything.

CleanMyMac

I was initially suspicious of CleanMyMac (Figure 5; alt.cc/1v, $39.95). I’d encountered too manymaintenance apps that made outrageous claims, deleted things that should have been left alone, oractively created mischief (see Beware MacKeeper, ahead). But I tried it out anyway—after makinga good backup, of course—and looked carefully at what it did. To my surprise, it behaved quiteresponsibly, and was useful enough for me that I started running it regularly. That’s not to say it’sperfect (read on for some caveats), but it’s pretty good.

Figure 5: CleanMyMac’s Smart Cleanup screen after running a scan.

CleanMyMac does lots of different things, but I think of it primarily as an uninstaller (refer back toUninstaller Utilities); it does an excellent job of uninstalling apps as well as getting rid of leftoverpieces from apps you previously deleted manually. This function is important because even thoughyou could drag all these files to the Trash yourself, finding them (and knowing which files go withwhich app) can be incredibly difficult.

Among the other tasks CleanMyMac can perform are:

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• Clearing some of your caches (see Consider Clearing Certain Caches) and logs• Managing (letting you enable, disable, or uninstall) system add-ons such as preference panes,plugins, services, and login items

• Clearing cookies, browsing history, and other browser records• Removing unneeded localizations from apps and from macOS itself• Deleting superfluous resources from iPhoto, iTunes, and Mail• Running the macOS periodic maintenance scripts (see Make Sure Scheduled MaintenanceTasks Run)

• Locating large and old files that you may want to delete or move to another disk• Rebuilding Spotlight and Mail indexes

It can also run selected maintenance tasks on a schedule and can warn you about problems such asdangerously low disk space, apps that have hung, and low memory conditions.

If you use CleanMyMac, please keep these recommendations in mind:

• Take the time to look through the CleanMyMac Help so that you understand what each of itsoptions does.

• Although the default Smart Cleanup scan is handy because it tells you about many potentialproblems at once, I think its default recommendations are excessive. In particular, I urge you tobe circumspect about clearing caches (see Consider Clearing Certain Caches) and localizationresources (see Clean Out Accumulated Cruft). I prefer to scan one category (like System Junk,Mail Attachments, or Large & Old Files) at a time.

• After CleanMyMac scans your Mac, always review its selections carefully (Figure 6) beforeclicking Clean. (You can do this by selecting a category and clicking Review Details.) If there’sanything you’re unsure about, deselect it.

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Figure 6: CleanMyMac lets you review its findings before deleting anything—and I strongly recommend that youdo!

OnyX

OnyX (titanium.free.fr, free) has been around since the days of Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar. Over theyears, this multipurpose maintenance tool has grown to include an astonishing array of features.

The interface is divided into six primary panes (for categories such as Maintenance, Cleaning,and Automation), and most of these are further subdivided into multiple views that group relatedfunctions. For example, Figure 7 shows the Logs view of the Cleaning pane, in which you can deleteany or all of seven types of logs with one click.

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Figure 7: It may not look like much, but this is just one of dozens of OnyX’s views, each of which has manymaintenance options.

Besides log deletion, OnyX shares a number of features with CleanMyMac, such as clearing caches,running maintenance scripts, repairing permissions, reindexing Spotlight and Mail, and deletingbrowser records. However, it also has a number of features not found in CleanMyMac, includingclearing font caches (see Consider Clearing Certain Caches), rebuilding certain system caches, andchanging hidden preferences.

This last feature has nothing to do with maintenance as such, but it’s quite useful—a simple,graphical way to adjust many settings that would otherwise require a trip to Terminal and enteringobscure command-line instructions. For example, you can turn your Mac’s startup chime on or off;change which users appear on the login screen; display hidden Debug menus in Safari, Disk Utility,Reminders, and other apps; change the behavior of the Dock, Notification Center, and the Helpviewer; and change the default file format and location for screenshots, among many other options.

Because OnyX has so many options and is free, I find it handy to have in my Utilities folder. It makesa nice companion to CleanMyMac; the two apps together handle the majority of maintenance tasksI cover in this book.

Nevertheless, I should warn you that OnyX has a few annoying quirks:

• It prompts you to enter your administrator password every time you launch it, rather thanonly when performing actions that require administrator privileges.

• OnyX is excessively chatty. By default, it displays various informational items at launch andquit. (To change this, go to OnyX → Preferences → Actions and uncheck everything.)

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• In addition to displaying the items noted in the preceding bullet point, OnyX by default asksyou to verify the structure of your startup disk at launch, before letting you do anything else.To make it stop, go to OnyX → Preferences → Advanced and choose Don’t Check.

• Although it has a built-in Check for Updates feature (which is disabled by default), it doesn’tupdate itself automatically, but rather downloads the new version to your desktop (or anotherlocation you choose), after which you must install it yourself.

• There’s a completely different version of OnyX for every version of macOS. So, when youupgrade to next year’s version of macOS, last year’s version of OnyX will no longer work andyou’ll have to download an entirely new copy.

Although I’m not crazy about some aspects of the user experience, you can’t beat the price or theconvenience of having so many tools together in one place.

Beware MacKeeperOne Mac utility you’re bound to have heard of (because the developer advertises so extensivelyand aggressively) is MacKeeper. Even though MacKeeper performs some of the tasks described inthis book, I recommend against installing or using it (which is why I haven’t even included a link).

MacKeeper includes security features such as an anti-malware scanner and encryption tools;cleanup features for freeing up disk space and uninstalling apps; and update tracking (amongnumerous other capabilities). That all sounds terrific, but according to numerous reports, Mac-Keeper can in fact slow down your Mac and cause crashes. In addition, many people consider thecompany’s advertising tactics to be obnoxious if not downright misleading.

If you’re curious, you can read more about MacKeeper:

• “What ‘MacKeeper’ is and why you should avoid it” by Peter Cohen at iMore (alt.cc/31)• “MacKeeper celebrates a difficult birthday under the cloud of a class action lawsuit” byJeremy Kirk at PCWorld (alt.cc/32)

My feeling is that it’s just not worth the risk. There are plenty of other ways to get the featuresMacKeeper offers, without all the drama.