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Cleaining up

rye9

rye9

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 20, 2005
1,347
77
New York (not NYC)
How can I clean up my Mac? How do I use OnyX? Whats the difference between update and complete optimization? Anything else besides using OnyX(which I dont know how to use:D), deleting printer drivers and languages to speed up or clean up my Mac?
 
rye9 said:
Can someone please answer me. I just got my Mac and would like to know how to keep it "healthy".
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The wonders of Mac; don't do anything - you don't need to. It won't effect the overall performance of your system. :)
It is not a windows, so don't treat it like one. (So no hitting a Mac with a Hammer!) :p
 
Running the maintenance scripts in Onyx probably isn't a bad idea, since if you tend to shut down/sleep your Mac the daily scripts won't be run.

But in general, very little is required to keep you Mac running smoothly.
 
emw said:
Running the maintenance scripts in Onyx probably isn't a bad idea, since if you tend to shut down/sleep your Mac the daily scripts won't be run.
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Which is actually taken care of (supposedly) in Tiger because of launchd. Apparently 'periodic' is run appropriately at a wake-up. Though I've not confirmed this yet..
 
I don't have any magical spells to keep my Macs "tidy". I don't see the need. And I'm a Mac Ninja by profession.

Tips:

Don't run out of disk space. Always keep at least 2GB and you're golden, unless you want to burn DVDs.

Repair Permissions after installing things that require passwords, don't bother otherwise.

Keep an eye on your logs.
 
rye9 said:
So OnyX isnt necessary for a clean, organized, tidy Mac? Nothing is necessary?
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Just wash your hands frequently. ;)

Reboot it once every two or three weeks, when an update comes out, put it to sleep otherwise, try to keep at least 8 gigs of hard drive space free if you can, and 5 if 8 is not possible. That's about it. :)
 
Wait, I'm lost. I've been told to delete printer files and language files, which I have done now. Not I am being told to just to not fill up my HD, repair disk permissions, run OnyX (dont understand how to), keep an eye on my logs (how?, what are they?), AND to do NOTHING but restart once in a while. Can I please get advice on which is best to do to keep a speedy, tidy Mac because I have been given many different opinions and would like more to see which opinions are most common; which might mean those opinions are best.:D
 
To be honest - you really don't need to do any of that. It's good to restart at least once a month (otherwise sleep) otherwise that is really it. Oh, and repair permissions every once in a while.

Grapes911 summed it up well; "I'll simplify it: Basically, do nothing unless you have a problem."
 
If it makes you feel better, you could use MacJanitor. ;) But yes, especially with Tiger, you don't need to really do anything. The scripts that used to be run at night in Panther which sometimes got missed are now run in Tiger upon start up (I believe) so you don't even need to worry about that anymore.

Just use your Mac and enjoy! What do you think this is, a crappy PC? :eek: :p ;) :cool:
 
The periodics run between about 3:00AM and 5:00AM each day (depending on whether they're needed) so you'll be fine. The issue was that if the computer was shut down or sleeping at this time, the periodics would be missed. Now that isn't a problem though, because they run when the machine starts up or wakes up. :)
 
mad jew said:
From memory, the scripts now run on wake up, since 10.4.2. :)
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Thanks for the info. I did not know that.

...I guess there are so many things I don't know about....
 
i found OnyX most useful for configuring my settings rather than cleaning my mac

you could use spring cleaning to clean it
 
Well, I like to defrag my hard disk once a month, run virus/spyware applications daily, re-install the OS once a quarter. :D
 
rdowns said:
Well, I like to defrag my hard disk once a month, run virus/spyware applications daily, re-install the OS once a quarter. :D
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that is why i bought a mac
because all of that is virtually unnecessary
 
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