Significance of Cleaning up Mac Drive to Speed up Mac

When your Mac boots sluggishly and you face spinning colored beach ball every time when you run an application or open a file, all you need to do is clean up your Mac. Do you know why you face such annoying issues on your Mac? Well, this is all due to accumulation of thousands of temporary files and iChat logs, overfilled Mac volumes, too many installed or running applications, and not always but rarely, corruption of Mac’s drive. In addition to the causes of generation of system’s waste, perhaps you are not aware of the causes of corruption of Mac’s drive too. Mac users ask is it mandatory to clean my Mac; however, they need to clean up Mac not only to make it boot faster, but to maintain its performance level as well.

In this regard, before they take any step forward to remove such clutter, it is recommended to make out what the causes of generation of system’s waste are. Following are the major causes of generation of such clutter:

Execution of System/User Programs

Mac has thousands of system files executing every time as long as it is running. During execution of system files as well as user applications, hundreds of temporary files are generated holding intermediate data. These files are termed as system’s waste that keeps system’s resources (RAM & Processor) busy in repeated execution of their own. When such files are accumulated in large number, Mac boots sluggishly, applications take long time to run, and many other symptoms of performance degradation are noted.

Accumulation of iChat Logs

iChat, the Mac inbuilt online chatting application, stores your chats as a log file that resides on your Mac. For every chat session, it creates a new file to store all messages, which not only includes text messages, but media files that you sent and received as well. Based on for how long you have been chatting and the sizes of the media exchanged files, the overall size of the chat logs folder can be in GBs.

Hard Drive’s Status

As Mac provides massive amount of storage space on its hard drive, users store data in equal proportion. However, they forget the fact that more the amount of data stored on a hard drive, the poorer is its performance. Ideally, the storage limit for every drive is up to 90 % of its storage capacity. A drive filled more than 90 % is called as overfilled, and it may crash anytime.

Installed Applications on Mac

The boot volume on your Mac stores system files as well as the installed applications. Since the space consumed by system files is fixed, the overall size of this volume is based on the number of application you install on it. Besides, every system update consumes disk space equal to its own size when you install any. Due to these applications and updates, boot volume on your Mac may get overfilled.

Once you know the causes of decreased Mac’s performance, resolve them ASAP. Following are the steps to remove such clutters on your Mac:

Clean up Temporary files

Since temporary files produced during the execution of system files and user applications keep system’s resources busy, you need to clean up these files in order to achieve faster Mac startup and execution of user applications.

Clean up iChat Logs

Log files stored by iChat application on Mac are useless and you need to remove them. Every time you open iChat application, these chat log files start executing just as temporary system files. Go to iChat application, browse chatting folder, and then remove these logs.

Clean up Mac Drive

Go through every Mac volume and move all unused data to an external drive. Likewise, remove all unwanted data. Remember that more the amount of free space available on a disk (or volume), the better is its performance. Therefore, create at least 10 % free space on every disk.

Uninstall Useless Apps

Go to the /Application folder on your Mac and uninstall all useless apps. Install an app only when it is required and uninstall it when you are no longer going to use it.

For quick and better results, you can use a professional Mac cleanup application to speed up Mac performance.

Improve Mac Speed with right Mac cleanup Application

Computers apparently come across performance degradation issues when they are used rigorously for long time under the effects of several internal as well as external factors. This not only affects the performance of that computer, but the overall productivity as well. In this situation, to improve the performance of the Mac system, a commercial Mac speedup app is the prime necessity.

Even though Mac is entitled as the excellent computer operating system, it does not really seem to be holding this title after a long period of rigorous usage. The so-called excellence of a Mac computer is disappeared and it is found as booting sluggishly, executing applications poorly, and freezing repeatedly. These issues minimize the performance of the Mac systems and hence, the productivity is decreased in equal proportion. At this stage, one needs to use a professional Mac speedup app to improve Mac speed considerably. However, before this, it is recommended to go through the following factors that are responsible for degraded performance of the Mac systems:

Busy System Resources

The term system resources stands for the essential hardware components (i.e. RAM & Processor) embedded in computers. These embedded system resources are essential for the execution of system programs, where processor is to process the execution and RAM is to execute. When a command to access an app is run, it is the responsibility of these resources to process and execute that application. When a slew of such apps, programs, and files are running simultaneously, these resources remain busy. Sometimes, one or more of these apps are crashed or even Mac system freezes. However, Macs are seen freezing when only one or more applications are running concurrently and the users have to shut down their Macs forcibly. Do you know why such situations arise? Well, this is all due to accumulation of system-generated wastes (such as temporary files, universal binaries, junk files, log files, and more) on your Mac.

During execution of system programs, a slew of temporary files are generated, which are stored on the boot volume. These files contain intermediate data of the processes being executed that keep undergoing repeated execution, thereby keeping system resources busy. As a result, other processes have to wait until system resources are free. At this stage, sometimes, one or more applications are crashed or even Mac system freezes.

Messy Mac system

Apart from temporary files, many other factors are also responsible for performance degradation of the Mac system. For example, login items and cluttered desktop that not only minimize Mac booting speed, but the execution of installed apps as well.

You might have noticed that one or more of the applications installed on your Mac run automatically as your Mac boots. Do you know how these apps are launched? Well, some apps create login shortcuts for themselves when they are installed. These shortcuts are associated with the user account in which they are installed. Since Mac booting process executes user profiles configured on it, all apps’ shortcuts associated to the user account that you log in are executed and respective apps are launched automatically. Now, as these apps execute during the Mac booting process, they greatly affect Mac booting speed and result in slow Mac startup.

Likewise, cluttered Mac desktop also affects Mac booting speed and causes longer booting time. To know how, go through this:

When your Mac boots to desktop, it scans each item (i.e. shortcuts, files, folders, downloaded apps, and more) located on it. Each item located on the desktop is treated like a program and is executed individually, which eats up system resources to large extent. Due to this, you face colored spinning beach ball and wait for this to disappear. Remember, larger the number of desktop items, the longer is the Mac booting process. In contrast, a Mac with clean desktop boots much faster.

Overfilled Mac volumes

Mac OS X facilitates partitioning its hard drive into numerous volumes of equal as well as unequal sizes. Based on the requirements, you can use these volumes to store different types of data.. However, the users who like to have collections of movies, songs, videos, personal pictures, and more overfill Mac volumes in order to store similar items collectively. As a result, these volumes are filled more than the actual amount of data they should store, and then they are termed as overfilled. A volume is referred to as overfilled when the amount of data stored on it is more than 90% of its capacity (i.e. the volumes contains free space less than 10% of its capacity). In reality, a volume should not be filled more than 90% of its storage capacity, as an overfilled volume or a hard drive is prone to corruption.

Likewise, the size of the boot volume is increased when you install a slew of applications simultaneously. To know how, go through this:

As you know, when you install an application, its installation files and data are stored on the boot volume that contains thousands of operating system files as well. Likewise, other applications, widgets, plug-ins, and system updates will also be residing on the Mac boot volume. This means that higher the number of applications installed on your Mac, the lesser is the free space available on the boot volume. However, a drive must have free space equal to at least 10% of its storage capacity, as an overfilled volume may corrupt anytime. If your Mac boot volume gets corrupt, data stored in secondary volumes becomes inaccessible.

Fragmentation on Mac

Apart from these aforementioned factors, fragmentation is also responsible for minimizing the performance of your Mac system. To know how, go through this:

You might not be aware of the fact that the space on your Mac drive is not available as a whole, but in blocks. This is none other than the HFS+ file system that divides this storage space into blocks for data storage. Besides, it breaks all large files into segments irrespective of the storage blocks. After that, each of these segments is allocated a separate storage block. However, due to the size mismatch, some blocks contain free spaces (i.e. termed as internal fragmentation), whereas some data segments are randomly stored due to the use of an inefficient storage space allocation algorithm. As a result, a slew of storage blocks remain unoccupied outside the allocated regions (i.e. termed as external fragmentation). Since the segments of large files are unable to occupy the available storage blocks, they again undergo segmentation and are stored non-contiguously (i.e. termed as data fragmentation).

Since Disk Utility in Mac OS X does not include Mac cleanup/speedup feature, you have to use a commercial Mac cleanup/speedup app in order to improve Mac speed considerably. Such an advanced app thoroughly scans your Mac system and does the following to improve its performance significantly:

Frees up System Resources

Since a slew of system-generated temporary files are accumulated on your Mac system, a professional Mac cleanup application thoroughly scans your Mac drive (including boot volume) and cleans up all temporary files (such as temporary files, universal binaries, junk files, log files, and more). This frees up system resources (RAM & processor) and disk space. Now, since system resources are free, other processes do not have to wait for their turn to be executed. This results in improved rate of execution of the Mac apps and files.

Removes system clutter

By scanning the entire Mac drive, a professional Mac app displays all clutter accumulated on your Mac system in the scan result. This includes, login items, unwanted items located on the desktop, installed applications, widgets, plug-ins, and many more items. Besides, it allows you clean up all these items after the scanning process is finished. As a result, the booting speed of your Mac system is improved and the files and folders stored on your Mac drive are accessed at a faster rate.

Remove unwanted things and installed apps

After scanning your Mac system thoroughly, a professional Mac cleanup application displays the scan results in a categorized view. This arrangement includes details like the date when you saved this app, last access date, last modification date, size of the app, and more. This helps you make out which app is not used for a long time and you can remove all such apps easily to free up system disk space. Likewise, you can remove all unwanted files and folders stored on the secondary volumes, which not only helps you free up disk space, but prevent the odds for disk corruption as well.

Mac Disk Defragmentation

Defragmentation involves rearranging all storage blocks logically in order to reduce the response time of data, and hence to improve the performance of your Mac system. Additionally, defragmentation not only makes all inaccessible storage blocks available again, but optimizes the free space as well. As a result, the rate of data read/write operations is also improved. Since Mac OS X does not include disk defragmentation feature in Disk Utility, you have to use an external Mac disk defragmentation app to improve Mac performance.

Drive toolbox to heel Mac slowdown issue

Since computers are nothing but machines, they also suffer from performance downfall issues, especially when they are used incessantly for long times. During such a pitiable state, you also face many problems when using them. For example, sluggish startup, applications take longer time to execute, files and documents open extremely slowly, and if you randomly click somewhere, they freeze for an undefined time. Overall, these all symptoms notify that hard drive performance is at lowest level. Sometimes, a computer does not revert to its normal state when frozen and you have to shutdown it forcibly, which is not in favor of you as well as your computer. In order to get all these issues fixed simultaneously and efficiently, a drive toolbox is the perfect tool to be used.

A drive toolbox is a comprehensive disk management tool that rectifies all disk related problems and performs several disk related tasks. Besides, it allows you keep your precious data protected when it is saved on your Mac. You might be thinking that what the need of a drive toolbox is, as a specific tool can be used to get a particular problem resolved. Well, the scope of this specific tool will be limited to that particular problem. However, it is not about getting a particular problem resolved, but to fix its real causes is. Following are the causes that minimize the level of performance of your Mac:

(1)            Messy Desktop increases Booting Time

When Mac boots, each system file is executed by making efficient utilization of the system’s resources (i.e. RAM & Processor). Since desktop is a system program, it is also executed along with other system files. During this, the number of item located on desktop are also executed. Therefore, more the number of items located on desktop longer will be the time taken by your Mac to boot.

(2)            Login items Minimize Mac Booting Speed

You probably have noticed that a few of the apps installed on your Mac launch automatically when it boots to desktop. Actually, these apps created login shortcuts for themselves when they were being installed. These shortcuts initiate these apps every time when your Mac system boots by easting up system’s resources. Therefore, more the number of login items poorer will be the Mac startup.

(3)            Mac system Configuration causing Mac Running Slow

The performance of your Mac system not only relies on the Mac OS X version, but also on its hardware configuration. Mac developers frequently release updates for system files as well as for the applications, which fix various security flaws that Mac users around the world have observed and reported. Similarly, the hardware configuration also matters in equal proportion.

(4)            Overfilled Hard Drive is Prone to Corruption

When you save a file on your Mac, it acquires disk space equal to its own physical size. This means that the amount of used space on a drive is the sum of the sizes of the files stored on it. Ideally, the used space on a drive should not be more than 90% of its storage capacity (i.e. a drive must have free space equal to at least 10% of its capacity). More than that makes a hard to be called as overfilled, which may get corrupt anytime, thereby causing data loss.

(5)            Temporary files keep System’s Resources Busy

Temporary files are system wastes that are produced during execution of numerous system as well as user applications. These files contain intermediate data of the applications and programs under execution that are useless after the executions of such programs are finished. However, all such files remain undeleted even after these programs are executed successfully, but keep executing repeatedly. As a result, system’s resources remain busy, thereby making other programs wait until they are free.

(6)            Fragmentation Causing increased Response Time

Fragmentation refers to a phenomenon that occurs due to inefficient utilization of the storage space on the hard drives. Since Mac file system splits this space into blocks to store data, large sized files have to be broken into segments of smaller sizes. This causes wastage of the storage space in large amount. Additionally, contiguously allocated regions on the hard drive contain free spaces inside as well as outside these occupied blocks. Due to this, since files have to gather their data from random locations, they take long time to respond as a whole.

Apart from the causes of poor performance of Mac systems as discussed above, there can be slew of unknown causes as well. In order to enhance the level of performance of your Mac, you cannot fix all such issues manually; however, a drive toolbox can apparently fix them up efficiently. Even though you can fix up a specific problem by using a professional tool, but the actual requirement is to fix the causes of the issue, not the issue itself. A professional drive toolbox for Mac must have the following features to improve hard drive performance:

• Tool to Speedup Mac

The professional Mac drive toolbox is should be able to scan your Mac drive thoroughly for system waste (such as temporary system file, system junk, universal binaries, cookies, and more). Once all such files are removed throughout your Mac, system’s resources become free. As a result, applications and files do not have to be in queue for their turn to be executed.

• Mac Disk Defragmenter

Defragmentation involves reorganizing the storage blocks in a logical order, thereby removing the fragments. Since Mac does not include any inbuilt disk defragmentation feature in Disk Utility, drive toolbox defrags your Mac drive efficiently.

• Mac Drive Performance

In order to keep your Mac healthy, drive toolbox features a tool that reports its overall health status, including its current temperature, number of bad sectors, and more.

• Mac Partition Manager

Many of the Mac users do not feel comfortable when using Disk Utility to fix the problems in Mac partitions. To assist all such users, drive toolbox for Mac resolves Mac partitions related issues.

• Data Protection

Apart from these, one of the most important features that Mac drive toolbox offers is the security of data stored on your Mac. For this, encryption is the most secure scheme that prevents unauthorized access to your precious files.

• Repairing Mac Volumes

Even though Macs are the most secure computers, Mac users also face Mac volume corruption issues due to carelessness and other random causes. Mac drive toolbox repair corrupt Mac volumes efficiently.

Stellar SpeedUp Mac to Fix Your Slow Mac

One of the common issues in  Mac or Windows you come across is slow speed after a long period of meticulous usage. Perhaps you too find solution to speed up Mac or Windows when it is booting or most likely when you open a file or run an application. In such a painful situation, as a fix for slow Mac, you should use a professional Mac speedup application. Though you can manually clean up some of these areas on your Mac, it gives quicker and efficient results if you use an advanced Mac speedup application, like Stellar SpeedUp Mac. However, it is recommended that do not use any external application on your Mac without having its reliability information.

Stellar SpeedUp Mac is a professional Mac cleaning application that thoroughly scans your Mac for system wastes, and thus allows you to remove them efficiently. The most attractive feature of Stellar SpeedUp Mac is - it even supports Macs having least system configuration (i.e. Supported OS: Mac OS 10.3.8 and later, RAM: 1GB, Disk space: 25MB, Processor: Intel, PowerPC (G3 or later)). Nevertheless, before you take any step forward to fix Mac slowdown issue, you must be familiar with the factors responsible for it. For this, you can refer to the following major causes of Mac slowdown:

System Generated Temporary Files

Hundreds of temporary files are generated automatically during execution of the system files and installed applications. These files not even consume disk space, but eat up system’s resources as well. Actually, such temporary files contain intermediate binary data that self allocates RAM and Processor for repeated execution of its own. As a result, these resources remain busy, thereby making other programs wait until they get free and the processing of your Mac falls down.

Unnecessary Applications

When you install an application on your Mac, the disk space it consumes is larger than its own physical size. Since each installed application resides on Mac boot volume, its overall size is a combination of both system files and installed applications. Therefore, higher the number of installed applications larger is the size of the boot volume.

Duplicate Files

You Mac may have several duplicate files locates on either the same or different folders. Do you know how these files are duplicated? When you download an email attachment or any file from the Internet, this file is downloaded to a default folder, from where you can access it. In order to save this to a folder wherein other similar ones are stored, you copy it and then paste it to that folder. This is how you duplicate the files on your Mac and this results in consumption of large amount of disk space unnecessarily.

Temporary Internet Files

Temporary Internet files are nothing but cookies that are downloaded automatically to your Mac during your Internet activities (such as social activities, and banking transactions). Just like temporary system files, cookies contain the details of your online activities (some in plaintext while other in a coded form) and eat up system’s resources unnecessarily.

Unwanted Plug-ins

Web browsers and other applications installed on your Mac automatically download unwanted plug-ins when downloading updates, which adversely affect the execution of these applications. Every time you run such an application, it takes long time to launch and works even sluggishly. As a result, the processing of your Mac system is minimized considerably.

These issues may not adversely affect your Mac individually, whereas collectively they may not let your Mac able to boot even. However, to avoid such an unmanageable situation, Stellar SpeedUp Mac is the recommended application. The simple and interactive GUI of this application makes Mac cleaning process quick and user friendly. Its three highly integrated modules – SpeedUp Mac, Clean My Mac, and Uninstaller make it a comprehensive solution to fix Mac slowdown issues. To know how Stellar SpeedUp Mac is proved as a fix for slow Mac, go through the following points discussing its features:

Removing Temporary System and Internet Files Efficiently

As discussed earlier, Stellar SpeedUp Mac offers three highly integrated modules that are programmed to clean Mac systems in an efficient manner. When you click SpeedUp Mac option, it starts scanning Mac boot volume for temporary system as well as Internet files (i.e. system junks, cookies, cache files, unwanted applications, plug-ins and add-ins, and widgets) and then displays all such items in the result window. Likewise, Clean My Mac module of this application works on all secondary volumes of your Mac. In the result window, you can preview these files before clicking the Clean Up button.

Removing all Duplicate Files

When scanning Mac boot volume and other secondary volumes, according to the scan preferences set, Stellar SpeedUp Mac lists all duplicate files (i.e. by checking signature of each file) in the scanned result window. Here, you can easily delete all duplicate files by a clicking the Clean Up button. Since all such files are useless, removing them frees up considerable amount of disk space.

Removing all Unnecessarily Installed Applications

An application is termed as unnecessary when it is not used for a long time, yet it is not uninstalled. All such applications not only consume space on Mac boot volume, but eat up system’s resources as well. The Uninstaller module of the Stellar SpeedUp Mac application facilitates uninstalling all unwanted things (such as applications, widgets, and plug-ins) from your Mac. When you drag and drop any such item to the uninstall area of the Uninstaller module, it searches for all associated files and then allows you to uninstall them individually as well as simultaneously in the searched result window.

After removing system’s wastes and uninstalling all unnecessary applications, you can indeed realize that considerable amount of disk space has become free on your Mac. This not only improves the performance of your Mac, but also allows you to store more data.

Delving deep inside your Mac may help you make out that you may manually clean up some areas of your Mac, but in order to get it done quickly and efficiently, Stellar SpeedUp Mac is an ultimate choice.

Quick and Easy steps to Clean up your Mac

Do you know why you need to speed up Mac after a long period of rigorous usage? What are the causes of performance degradation of your Mac? Well, you probably do not; however, one of the major causes of Mac’s performance issues is Mac itself. You may not believe it, but it is true that somewhere somehow Mac itself is one of the major causes of decrease in its performance. Let us discuss how:

Mac has thousands of system files that keep executing repeatedly as long as it is running. During execution of these system files, several temporary files are generated automatically, which contain intermediate data of the processes in binary format. These files remain undeleted even after the process is finished and undergo repeated execution of their own, thereby eating up system’s resources (RAM & Processor). Due to this, other processes have to be in queue for system’s resources to become idle. The execution of such system garbage does not end up automatically and your Mac slows down gradually. In such situations, you need to take necessary fixes or use application to speed up Mac. Apart from this, following factors are also responsible for poor performance of your Mac:

Apple mail logs

Mac OS X has inbuilt email client app that features Quick View of the email attachment by double-clicking it. However, whenever you double-click an email attachment, it is downloaded automatically on your Mac at its default location. The size of the download folder is increased every time when you launch Quick View of an attachment. It is recommended to browse the location of this folder and remove all previewed files.

iChat logs 

Apart from the apple’s email client app, Mac OS X has inbuilt iChat Messenger for online chatting that stores your chat logs in a text file on your Mac. In fact, for every chat session, it creates a separate log file and stores incoming as well as outgoing messages in it. Moreover, if you have been exchanging images, songs, and other media files, then the size of the chat logs folder can be in GBs. Browse this chat logs folder and delete all chat log files.

Safari Browser logs

Safari, Mac inbuilt web browser, stores your Internet session details (such as History of the websites you have visited, username and password, and auto-fill forms data) every time you browse the Internet. When these logs are accumulated in large number, Safari slows down and sometimes, it crashes. To clean up these logs, go to Safari menu and click Reset Safari.

A Slew of Installed Apps

Boot volume on your Mac not only stores system files, but installed applications’ files as well. Therefore, more the number of installed applications, the larger will be the size of the boot volume. Since an overfilled disk may crash anytime, make sure you do not install unwanted applications. Besides, remove an application when you are no longer going to use it. For this, go to /Applications folder and remove all unwanted applications.

Besides these, there are other things in your system, which you cannot remove manually. To clean up all such areas, use a professional clean up Mac application.

Find out the ways to get your Mac Speed up yourself

Since computers are electronic cum digital machines, the performance of every machine relies on its embedded components and the way it is used. Similarly, a computer (whether Windows or Mac) comes across performance issues after running for a long period due to a slew of reasons.

Mac OS X is termed as an excellent computer operating system because of its pleasant GUI (Graphical User Interface), high-class hardware components, and unparalleled data processing speed. Despite these excellent features, Mac OS X users face performance issues and complain, for example, “My Mac is running at a Snail’s pace. How can I get it speed up?” However, delving deep into the problem introduces the causes of Mac crawling instead of running. These causes are none other than the system waste accumulated in different corners of the Mac machine. Therefore, in order to speed up Mac, you must clean up system’s waste accumulated in the following system areas:

Clean up Mac Hard Drive

Hard drive is the major source of memory on a computer; however, the performance of a computer is inversely proportional to the amount of data stored on its hard drive (i.e. more the amount of data stored on a hard drive, the poorer will be its performance). Today, computers are available with huge data storage capacity (i.e. 500GB, 1TB, and more) that facilitates storing large amount of data and installing so many applications concurrently. However, more the amount of free space available on a hard drive, the better is its performance.

Therefore, to let a computer perform significantly well, make sure every Mac volume has at least 10% of its capacity as free space.

Removing Login items to Get Accelerated Startup

Some applications create startup execution actions for themselves when you install them. You might have noticed that some applications start up automatically whenever your Mac boots to desktop. These self-executing applications are termed as Login or Startup items. Every time your Mac will boot, these startup actions will consume RAM for their execution and processor to process this execution. As a result, Mac’s startup time increases.

In order to speed up Mac machine, you can remove these Login items here: Apple menu > System Preferences > User & Groups. Select your user name at the left. Now, go to Login items tab. Click to check the checkbox in front of an item and click remove (-) to delete it.

Removing Temporary Internet Files

When you surf the Internet, a slew of temporary files download automatically on your Mac or by the web browser itself, which self-allocate processor and RAM for repeated executions. Because of which, System’s resources remain busy unnecessarily. 

Remove all such temporary files, cookies, browser’s history, stored username and passwords, etc. within Safari browser. On Safari browser go to Safari menu and choose Reset Safari. A message box will appear to notify you what is going to be deleted and you need to click Erase button over there.

Clean up iChat log files

Mac OS X has a built-in chat application, i.e. iChat that stores all your chat logs in an iChat named folder in Documents folder on your Mac. For this, you need to launch iChat, and then follow Preferences > Messages > Save Chat Transcripts To. Choose a folder to save all your chat logs. By storing all your chat messages in text format, iChat may help you remind your conversations. However, imagine the size of iChat folder if you had exchanged media files (i.e. images and more).

You can delete these iChat logs in order to improve iChat speed and save disk space.

Clean up your Mac without bothering yourself

Since Mac Computers are sophisticated in nature, every time you need to use any of its tools, make sure you are well aware of their features and functionality. During the input and output operations, Mac’s performance falls gradually, due to which this so-called excellent computer (i.e. Mac) falls sick and requires cleanup.

When it comes to cleaning the Mac, what are the different areas on Mac that you consider as dirty and want to clean them up? Do you clean Mac’s hard drive, minimize number of installed apps, remove email logs, and other temporary files? If not, you should be cleaning up all these spots on your Mac frequently, in order to make it run smoothly. Consider the following steps to clean drive and speed up Mac:

 

Mac Hard Drive

Hard drive is one of the major areas under suspect for affecting Mac’s performance, as every single file (i.e. System files and user data) is stored on it. The nature and amount of data stored on the hard drive collectively affect the performance of the computer. Therefore, make sure the memory occupied by data is less than 90 percent of the capacity of the hard drive. For example, if capacity of a Mac volume is 100GB, then data stored on it should not be more than 90GB.

 

Installed Apps

The boot volume on Mac is the primary volume, which contains operating system’s files along with the applications you install on it (i.e. the apps you install on your Mac consume space from the boot volume). System files consume definite amount of space while rest of the memory is utilized for installing apps. Therefore, more the number of installed apps, lesser will be the free space. Make sure you install an app only when it is required, and remove it when you are no longer going to use it.

 

Email Auto-downloads

Apple’s email facilitates quick view of the email attachment (if any). When you receive an email including a media file as an attachment, you can have a quick look at it by double-clicking it within the email. As you open its preview, it automatically downloads at a default location, i.e. youruserfolder/Library/Mail Downloads. Therefore, you must have a downloaded copy of all previewed media files you received via email. Go to this directory location and empty this folder, since every time you access those emails, these downloaded files start executing automatically.

 

Browser Reset

Apple computers have inbuilt Safari web browser that by default stores logs of all Internet activities, such as browsing history, cookies, username and password, cache, form text, and download history. All such information is stored in temporary files that reside on the hard drive. Every time you launch Safari browser, these log files become active and start executing automatically. Therefore, launch Safari, go to Safari menu, and click Reset Safari. Click the checkboxes in front of the items you want to reset, and then click Reset button.

Besides the spots on Mac you can clean up manually, several unreachable areas also need cleanup. In order to clean such areas, you need to use cleanup Mac software.

Encryption ensures for Data Protection on Mac OS X Lion

Data Encryption is a process of converting information in the form of plain text to a non-readable form termed as 'cipher text' using advanced mathematical algorithms. The motto of data encryption is limiting the right to access the information to authorized users only. Getting an efficient and reliable file encryption software for Mac is quite difficult, as so many data encryption software are available on the Internet. However, it is recommended to use professional software only. Once the information is transformed to cipher form, every time you need access to the information, you need to enter the decryption password, which is the same as that used for encryption.

Initially, data encryption was introduced for securely sharing military secrets. However, today, data encryption is used for sharing confidential information over emails between two business organizations. Mac OS X facilitates creating both blank and existing Mac volume’s encrypted image (.dmg) containing your precious data. Following are the steps involved in creating a password-protected blank image or vault:

• Step 1: Launch Disk Utility

(On the desktop menu bar, click Go > Applications > Utilities folder > Disk Utility)

• Step 2: Click New Image option on the Disk Utility toolbar

(Make sure no disk is selected in the left pane)

• Select a Location to save this image.

(You can also create a New Folder at this location.)

• Choose a Size for this image
• Choose Volume format as Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
• Select Image Format as read/write disk image
• Choose Encryption as 128-bit AES Encryption or 256-bit AES Encryption (Mac OS X 10.5 or later)
• Click Create

When you click Create, a set password window will be displayed. For Password help, you can click key button next to the Password field. Here, you can try different pre-specified combinations of passwords. However, it is recommended to set your own password by choosing memorable in order that you can easily remember it. After you specify a password, it takes some time to create the blank image or vault. After that, you will see a mounted disk and an image (.dmg) file with the name you specified at the chosen location. Depending on the image’s size, you can move your essential files to it. Once the data transfer is done, you can un-mount this image in Finder. Every time you double-click this image, you need to enter the password.

This is how you can implement encryption in Mac OS X Lion. However, you can use file encryption software for Mac in order to achieve individual file encryption.

Note: Both encryption and decryption passwords are same.

Check Health Status of your Mac’s Hard Drive in Easy Steps

The hard drive is a major source of secondary memory on a computer, facilitating data storage to large extent. Just like every other electronic and mechanical component, hard drives are subject to logical corruption due to power failure, master boot record corruption, and failure due to physical damages. Though you cannot prevent the hard drive failure or corruption, you can avoid data loss by frequently checking the hard drive volume status with Disk Utility. If some errors are reported, you can make necessary repairs right over there.

You must refer to S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) Status of the hard drive on Disk Utility, which reports the reliability and expected failure. You might not know where and how to check hard drive’s S.M.A.R.T. status; therefore, follow the steps discussed below:

• Launch Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility)
• Select the hard drive in the left pane.
• Now, look for the S.M.A.R.T. Status in the bottom pane under First Aid tab

• If it says Verified, then drive is OK
• Else, you need to repair the drive in Recovery Mode

Note: S.M.A.R.T. status belongs to the hard disk drive, not to an individual volume. Therefore, you cannot judge exactly where the corruption is.

Most likely, the corruption is in single volume (could be in boot volume) and you verify and repair the entire hard drive, which are time- as well as resource-consuming processes. You can individually check the health status of every Mac volume with Disk Utility, though. For this,

• Launch Disk Utility.
• Select a volume (non-boot) in the left pane.
• In the First Aid tab at the right, click Verify Disk and wait for the process to finish.

• If you see some Red instructions (indicating errors) in the Show detail area, then click Repair Disk
• Else, the volume is OK.

• Repeat these steps for each non-boot volume

To check the health status of the boot volume, you need to boot the Mac in Recovery Mode. To do this, Restart your Mac and hold Command + R Keys during startup.

• Choose a preferred Language and continue.
• Launch Disk Utility in the Utilities menu.
• Select boot volume (listed as Macintosh HD) and click Repair Disk

Depending on the size of boot volume, the process could be long and you have to wait. After the repair is finished, exit Disk Utility and boot Mac normally. If you do not get the drive or the volume repaired, it is recommended to back up your data and replace the disk with a new one.

Effective Tips to Revive your Mac OS X

“I am a newbie to the Mac world, who recently moved to Mac after hearing a lot about its unbeatable performance. Initially, it worked exactly how I heard about, but now this so-called excellent Mac OS X has turned into a Snail. Every time I double-click any file or folder, a colored revolving circle appears taking 3 – 4 seconds to disappear. Now, the situation has become annoying and I really do not know what to do. Somebody help me getting my Mac performing well again.”

You may consider many things affecting the performance of your Mac. However, you can’t be so sure, as you don’t know what exactly is going on inside the Mac machine. Besides, the situation becomes more critical, if the user is a newbie who can’t even think of taking a step forward to speed up Mac again.

Well, disappointment will not be roving around if you track the following steps to keep your Mac healthy:

 

Keep Everything Updated

Developers frequently release updates for software as well as for the operating system, which include fixes for various issues experienced by the users around the globe. Make sure you have installed all latest updates released both for Mac OS X and for each installed application. If not, then go to Apple menu and click Software Update. Every new update will display in the Software Update Window. You just need to Click Install button.

 

Keep Free Space on the Hard Drive

Do not keep unnecessary data on the Mac drive, as more free space improves execution. Go through the hard drive volumes, delete every useless thing, and move all seldom-used items to any external drive. Keep everything organized properly for easy access in near future.

 

Clean up Mac

Several types of temporary files (such as system binaries, cookies, cache, etc.) are generated as a result of internal processing and online activities. These files are not removed automatically after completion of the ongoing operations, but eat up RAM and processor. Though you can clean up such files manually by visiting different corners of the Mac machine, it is better to use a good cleanup software for quick and better results.

 

Upgrading RAM

RAM is the primary memory in computers that executes every system as well as user program. Operating system divides these programs into segments to store them on the hard drive. These segments are collectively executed in RAM. Therefore, more the RAM, faster will be the execution, i.e. you will experience a performance bump on Mac.

However, not every user goes for the hardware upgrade. Alternatively, one can defrag Mac drive.

 

Defrag Mac Drive

Because of the rapid movement of the large data segments and inefficient memory allocation, memory blocks remain unallocated among large data arrays. These unused blocks affect data access and Mac’s performance is minimized automatically. Use a good disk defragmentation software to remove the fragments and to speed up Mac.

Mac cleaner for OS X Mavericks | Make Mac ready for Mavericks

I need to clean My Mac drive with Mac cleaner for Mavericks installation. My Mac disk is almost full and need an app cleaner to delete all unnecessary applications and files from it. Currently, I am on Mountain Lion and want to switch to Mavericks to experience the most advanced OS from Apple. The most fascinating part of this OS X is its speed. I enjoyed every feature of my Mountain Lion but sometimes got frustrated with its sluggish speed. And that is the reason why I want to have the Mavericks.

Mac cleaning applications

While searching for this category, I came across two options – CleanMyMac and Stellar Speed Up Mac. The applications reviews were great and pushed me to download both of these.

Stellar Speed Up Mac v2.5

The free version of this App comes with limited features. The welcome screen offers three options:

a. SpeedUp Now : To apply the cleaning task on whole drive

b. Clean My Mac : To clean useless files from a single volume

c. Uninstaller ; To remove an application permanently

Options in Preferences

1. General : You can set the preferences for types of files to be deleted from your machine. It makes settings for both Clean My mac and SpeedUp Now options.

2. Folder Search: One can mention the folder location from where the files need to be deleted.

3. Languages: You have the flexibility to choose and delete the language files you don't need. You have the option either to group the files by language or by software.

4. Files: In this section you can filter the scanning process on the basis of file extension, File size and duration of last access.

5. Devices: This feature runs automatic trash service from external removable devices.

6. Advanced: The advanced section includes option to play sounds, Launch uninstaller automatically and trash monitoring.

7. Scheduler: You can schedule the launch of Speed Up Mac automatically and check for updates either daily, weekly or monthly.

8. Ignore List: The app ignores the files enlisted here.

The trial versin of this Mac cleaner scanned my complete drive of 320 GB in a minute and asked me either to register and clean 1.68 GB of useless files OR to clean just 460 MB, without registration. I clicked the “Free Cleanup” while I was downloading CleanMyMac.

CleanMyMac 2

The welcome window shows options for Automatic Cleanup, System Cleanup, Large & Old files, iPhoto cleanup, Uninstaller, Extension Manager and Eraser.

The app works on whole disk in one go and doesn't have any option to select a specific volume. It can delete the large and old files but doesn't provide flexibility to to chose the size and access duration.

An interesting feature I liked here is iPhoto cleanup which can delete unnecessary files from iPhoto of your Mac.

After the scan is completed, it prompted me a message to purchase the licence but no feature is free with trial version of CleanMyMac 2.

Options in Preferences

1. General: It has the option to reset the ignore list and play sounds.

2. Scanning: Here, one can select and deselect the type of files to be scanned while running the application.

3. Scheduler: Option to schedule the maintennance task by the application either weekly or once in 2 weeks.

4. Monitoring: This section provides option to launch uninstaller to delete all related items of an application, once it is moved to trash.

5. Privacy and Updates: An option to check for updates automatically.

On the basis of above observations, I prefer Stellar Speed Up Mac and going to, make my Mac ready for Mavericks.