Apple Mac computers do a pretty good job of taking care of themselves but even Macs need a little tune-up/clean-up periodically.
Prerequisites: You must have some knowledge of using the finder and emptying trash, and it helps if you're comfortable using the terminal a little.
Difficulty Level: Member • Nerd • Platypus
Estimated Time: 1-2 Hours
Expected Outcome: The Apple Mac computer will be updated and faster.
Tools Required: Admin credentials for your mac. Internet connectivity. A little confidence ;)
- Empty your Trash regularly
- Restart your Mac occasionally
- Declutter your desktop
- Keep your software updated
- Manage your login items
- Remove junk files
- Run First Aid
- Flush your DNS cache
- Delete the system cache folder
- Empty your Trash regularly
- When you send files to your Trash, they still take up disk space, and they’ll continue to do so until you delete them permanently. If you forget to empty your Trash, you can end up with gigabytes of unwanted sitting in there, taking up space and potentially slowing your Mac down too.
- So keep on top of your Trash folder by emptying it regularly. Maybe do it at the end of every session or every day you’ve used your Mac.
- There are a couple of ways to empty your Trash:
- Right-click your Trash icon in the Dock, and select Empty Trash (or Empty Bin)
- There are a couple of ways to empty your Trash:
Press Cmd + Shift + Delete on your keyboard
In both cases, when prompted, click the Empty Trash or Empty Bin button
Empty Bin
2. Restart your Mac occasionally
When you put your Mac to sleep, it uses such a tiny amount of power, it’s almost as good as turning it off completely. Indeed, some Mac users almost never shut down their Macs. That’s fine, but you should still occasionally restart our machine anyway. As well as clearing out temporary data, restarting your Mac may also allow it to complete updates that are waiting in the wings.
Restart your Mac like this:
1. Click the Apple icon in the top left of your screen
2. Select Restart
Apple logo > Restart
3. Click the Restart button
Restart Mac
3. Scan for malware
Ideally, you should have antivirus software like MacKeeper installed on your Mac, because it offers real-time protection. That means it constantly monitors your Mac for malware. If it detects anything suspicious, it will leap into action, stopping unauthorized software from making changes to your computer and letting you know what’s happening. Whichever security software you use, you should occasionally run full antivirus scans too. This will, of course, help to keep your Mac clear of malware.
Here’s how to run a virus scan in MacKeeper:
1. Open MacKeeper’s Antivirus feature, and click Start Scan
MacKeeper antivirus > Start Scan
2. Wait for the scan to finish
MacKeeper antivirus
3. If MacKeeper finds malware, select it from the list, and click Move To Quarantine
MacKeeper antivirus > Move to Quarantine
4. Declutter your desktop
If you have a tendency to save or drag and drop things to your desktop, it can soon become extremely cluttered. On older Macs, this can have a noticeable impact on your startup times too. You probably won’t notice it on new systems, with their fast processors and storage, but a macOS desktop that’s crammed with files and folders is still messy and counterproductive.
Every now and then, you should declutter your desktop like this:
1. Open a new Finder window, and click Desktop. This will show you everything that’s on your desktop in one window
Desktop folder
2. You might also want to view the items as a list, by clicking the list button
Sort files
3. Now go through everything that’s on your desktop, and delete what you don’t want to keep
Move to Bin
4. For everything else, decide where else you could keep it. Images, of course, can go in your Pictures folder, and text files can go into Documents.
5. Keep your software updated
Your Mac will usually tell you when there are updates available for macOS and its built-in apps, but you may want to check for new updates from time to time as well. You should aim to keep your Mac up to date at all times because Apple releases security patches as well as new features.
Third-party apps will manage their own updates, so you’ll need to check them separately. You can also use MacKeeper’s Update Tracker to keep on top of things.
Here’s how to check for and install macOS updates:
1. In your menu bar, select Apple > System Preferences
Apple > System Preferences
2. Click Software Update
3. Click Check for Updates
4. If updates are available, wait for them to download
5. Select Automatically keep my Mac up to date if it’s not already ticked
6. Click the Restart Now button if it appears
Software Updates
6. Manage your login items
Login items are exactly what they sound like. When you log into your Mac, it will open certain apps automatically. The more of these there are, the longer it will take for your Mac to be ready to use. Every now and then, you should check what these login items are and remove any that you don’t really need or want.
You can manage your login items from your Mac’s System Preferences. However, this may not include certain background processes that also start with your Mac. You can see and remove these using MacKeeper’s Login Items feature.
Here’s how to remove login items with System Preferences:
1. Open System Preferences, and click Users & Groups
System Preferences > Users & Groups
2. Select the Login Items tab
3. If there’s anything in the list of items you could do without, select it, and click the minus button
Manage Login Items
7. Remove junk files
Over time, your Mac can become filled with junk files. Finding and deleting this unnecessary data will help you to regain disk space and could even give your Mac a small speed boost.
Junk files can include old, unwanted downloads; files left behind by apps you’ve uninstalled; duplicate files and photos; and cached files.
You can find and delete some junk files using macOS’s storage management features:
1. Click the Apple icon in your menu bar
2. Select About This Mac
Apple logo > About this Mac
3. Now choose the Storage tab, and click Manage
Storage tab > manage
4. Under Reduce Clutter, click Review Files
Reduce Clutter
5. Go through each of the tabs and select files you want to remove. Click Delete
Documents folder
8. Run First Aid
Part of macOS’s Disk Utility, the First Aid feature will scan your Mac for disk errors and try to fix them. Normally, you’d use First Aid when your Mac is behaving in unexpected ways, like freezing up. However, you can run a scan any time you like.
Follow these steps to use First Aid on your Mac:
1. Open Disk Utility from Applications > Utilities
Applications > Utilities
2. Select your system disk, and click First Aid
Disk Utility > First Aid
3. Click Run
Run First Aid
4. Click Continue
Run First Aid
5. Wait for the scan to complete
Running First Aid
6. If any errors are found, follow the on-screen instructions to attempt to fix them. Otherwise click Done
Running First Aid
9. Flush your DNS cache
DNS stands for ‘domain name system’, and it’s basically like a phonebook for the internet, connecting web browsers with websites. As you surf the web, your Mac will store its own DNS records, helping you to get to the websites you’re after.
This DNS cache can become corrupted, though, so you may want to occasionally reset it by ‘flushing’ it. This can optimize your web browsing experience and keep everything working as expected.
The process you use will differ depending on which version of macOS you’re running. Check out our full guide to flushing your DNS cache for more information.
For Big Sur and Monterey, follow these steps to flush your Mac’s DNS cache:
1. Open Terminal from Applications > Utilities
Applications > Utilities > Terminal
2. Type in sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder, and press Enter
Terminal command
3. Type in your admin password, and press Enter again
Terminal command
How to clear your Mac’s system cache
Most Mac apps create temporary cache data. These files can range from tiny to quite large files, depending on what they’re for and what app created them. In any case, these files can end up cluttering up your disk space and slowing down your Mac. For that reason, you might want to clear your Mac’s system cache every now and then.
Here’s how to delete your Mac’s system cache:
1. In Finder, select Go > Go to Finder
2. Enter ~/Library/Caches in the window that appears
3. Click Go, and you’ll be taken to your Caches folder
4. This takes you to the cache folder. Now, just delete anything you don’t want
