Mac OS X forum: Cleaning up my MAC

Good day to you,
You may try cleaning disc called by name of Yasu, You can searc and download it from internet. My MAC administrator recommended to me last month. I cleaned my MAC everyweek by Yasu, looks pretty good.

Hi Joshu,

I use several cleanup utilities; my favorite is sterMachine which you can find on www.macupdate.com. It performs a number of cleanup activities some of which are for advanced users. Most of these are done using the OSX Unix programs that come with OSX and are largely hidden with no interface to them. It is a powerful program and if not careful you can munge up something (haven't done that yet!).

You don't have to defragment your hard drive; as OSX does that behind the scenes. Disk Utility is good for doing the fix permissions thing before and after OSX updates. I also occasionally use Preferential Treatment to clean up preferences from programs I deleted. Usually, preferences don't get deleted when a program is deleted.

I use some other programs but am not on my iBook to get a list for you. If you search macupdate.com, you can find alot of them - just make sure they support your version of OSX.

Frank

Hi Joshua,

Disk Utility is the first line of defense. About once every 2 months I boot from the restore disk (Panther install discs) and repair disk and permissions. Run it twice just to be sure. I agree about Yasu also to clean caches and run maintenance on demand - about once a month. Finally I have Tech Tool Pro. If you have the lite version it's only about a $60 upgrade and creates an emergency backup of the start-up volume, but takes about 4GB of hard drive space. Performs many tests and repairs a lot except for what Disk Warrior can do. TT also can optimize the hard drive which is good if you deal with editing large video files which can cause some fragmenting. It definitly gives me peace of mind having it. Start with Disk Utility and work your way up!

-Joe

I have used TechTool for 10 years and never ever had a problem with it. I have it now on my PB G4 and have created the edrive. Micromat tech told me to now always start up from the edrive when using TT. Also as far as fragmentation there is a lot. I Optimize about once a month. Make sure to check volume directory and turn journaling off before optimizing disk. Don't forget to turn it back on when done. In fact you cannot optimize the disk with journaling on. The first time I ran it when I got the latest update I had over 6000 disk fragments.

Start with a pealing knife then when the skin is removed use a 5lb mini shudge hammer and bingo it's done.

Start with a pealing knife then when the skin is removed use a 5lb mini sludge hammer and bingo it's done.

Dick Utility is OK as far as it goes. But, eventually, you will need to do more than that. DiskWarrior is fine also, but costly; still, it may do the job if a disk is very corrupted. I use it infrequently.

Applejack is new and free. Download at Version Tracker and install. To use, restart computer, hold down command key and s. That launchs Terminal in single user mode and Applejack will come up and tell you what to do from there. Running Applejack 'auto' restart will perform all maintenance necessary. Takes a few minutes, but completely automatic. In between, I use Macjanitor, also free; simple and easy to use. If you are using Tiger, be sure any software you add is compatible. If Panther, you're probably OK.

If you are a very newbie Mac user, you should do a scheduled maintenance to keep your Mac running smoothly. The info I've given you here took me about 6 months of trial and error to discover. If you have a laptop, get Applecare. It's worth it. You likely won't need it, but good insurance. Macs don't need defrag. When you see the term, 'optimizing' that's what the Mac is doing.

If you like Cocktail, visit http://www.macosxcocktail.com/ and try Cocktail for Mac OS X.

Open your Web Browser, presumably Safari. If it's not then the procedure is basically the same.

Open the preferences of the browser.

Safari: On the first page of the preferences you will see that you are currently downloading files to the desktop. Next to the word desktop there is a drop down arrow. Click it and choose Other.
Now browse to a place that you would like your downloaded files to be placed.
I created a folder on the desktop called "Downloaded Files" and pointed Safari at it.

If you are using any other browser, the procedure is the same, just the location of that option is different.

Leopard (10.5) actually has a folder called Downloads.

Hope this helps tidy up your desktop

P

Hey Joshu,

In addition to Tech Tool Pro my suggestion to you is to go to atomicbird.com and check out MACARONI.

Cheers