Maintenance Tips for Your Macintosh to Tune up Mac’s performance for maximum productivity

Here are a few OSX Maintenance Tips that can boost your Macintosh’s performance over the years.

Mavericks-OSX-icon

 
Ideally, you should perform these tasks once a month or weekly, which will optimize and tune up your Mac so that it runs at its optimum level.

Here are the following things that you have to perform,

Step 01:
Verify & Repair Disk Permissions, Verify & Repair Disk for Errors

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The first thing you must do is delete the ‘Cache’ folder from your Library folder.

Path: Macintosh HD > Users > YOUR USERNAME > Library

Now reboot your Mac & empty the ‘Trash’ folder after logging into your account.

The second step is to verify & repair HD Permissions in ‘Disk Utility.’

You can find the ‘Disk Utility’ App here:

Path: Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility

Now choose ‘Macintosh HD > Macintosh HD > click First Aid.

Note: Don’t use your finder & computer till all the above tasks are complete.

Step 02
Run NVRAM or PRAM Reset
Your Mac stores specific settings in a memory area, even if turned off. On Intel-based Macs, this is stored in memory known as NVRAM; on PowerPC-based Macs, it is stored in memory known as PRAM.

NVRAM / PRAM Resets information stored or cached inside it, including

  • Speaker volume
  • Screen resolution
  • Startup disk selection
  • Recent kernel panic information, if any

Method & Step to Execute PRAM Reset:

  1. Shut down your Mac.
  2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command (⌘), Option, P, and R. You must hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
  3. Turn on the computer.
  4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys before the grey screen appears.
  5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts, and you hear the startup sound
  6. for the second time.
  7. Release the keys.

For more information, navigate to this page: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

Step 03:
Clean ‘Open with Menu’
Sometimes, one app appears three or four times in the ‘Open with’ menu after you right-click on something as the Mac Operating System caches it.
Here is the method to clear the ‘Open with’ Menu cache,
First, open the ‘Terminal’ app in the Utilities folder inside your Applications folder on your Macintosh HD. (Please refer to the above to locate the path to navigate to the ‘Utilities’ folder.)

mac-osx-terminal-app

Now type the following or copy and paste the following text after your username:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Type the password if asked.

Your ‘Open with’ Menu will be cleaned up for double entries.

Step 04:
Run OSX Maintenance Scripts.
As Mac is based on UNIX, it has routine Maintenance Scripts that get executed between 03:15 AM and 05:30 AM Local Time as per the requirement, i.e., if your Mac is running and up during that period. These scripts perform actions such as cleaning up various System logs and temporary files.
To see when the last time Daily, Weekly, & Monthly scripts were run, You can write or copy-paste the following code in Terminal,

ls -al /var/log/*.out

Then press enter.

Now Execute Daily, Weekly, & Monthly Scripts by running the following command in the Terminal App.

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

Then press the ‘Return’ key & if asked, enter your passwords.

Now, Your Mac is up & running at its best…!!!

Thanks & Regards
Mandar Apte

Published by Mandar Apte

Mandar is a Mumbai-based multi-disciplinary designer with UX/UI, Logo, Symbol, and Brand Identity design expertise. He currently runs his Mudrkashar Linguistic Apple iPhone, iPad, and Mac app business in the heart of Mumbai city.

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