Maintenance on a Mac

With owning a Apple MacBook Pro and iMac, I’ve asked myself what maintenance can I run on my Macs to keep them in running order.

Apple brags that their other products “just work,” so many people never consider regular maintenance for their Macs. For the most part, there’s really little upkeep that you need to do, and much of the maintenance tasks are ones you would do on a PC as well.

First thing you’ll want to perform is regular software updates on the Mac (under the Apple menu > Software Update). You can configure Apple’s Software Update to automatically check for updates regularly.

Regular backups are also an essential part of computer maintenance;  Apple’s built-in Time Machine backup program is pretty good. You’ll find Time Machine in the Applications folder.

Besides those two things, the Mac maintenance article on Apple’s support site recommends organizing your files, archiving old files, and physically cleaning your computer.

You can avoid problems by proactively running the disk utility every two to three months. You’ll find Disk Utility in the Utilities folder on your Mac to scan your drive for errors and repair disk permissions.

Well, that’s all that can be said on running maintenance on a mac. If you have any tips, please add them to the comments below.