Keeping your Mac secure, your data safe, and your mind at ease is easy when you follow a routine to back up, clean up, and protect your data. Almost everyone knows they need to run certain programs to keep their computer in top shape but maintaining a routine is difficult.
The best way to solidify a Mac cleanup routine is to enter it into your calendar as if it were a scheduled appointment with your doctor. Seriously, if you don’t set aside time specifically designated for maintaining your computer, you’ll only do it when something goes wrong. If you have a habit of scrambling to back up your files only when your Mac starts acting up, one day, the problem might be serious and you won’t be able to backup your files.
Every good computer maintenance routine begins with the right tools. Here are several you should install and use on a regular basis:
1) Set up Time Machine
Time Machine is the best backup feature Mac users could ever ask for. It runs automatically, continually backing up files, apps, and your operating system. Time Machine also provides quick restores – even of your OS – when needed.
You’ll need a large capacity external hard drive to set up Time Machine with at least 5TB of space. This hard drive will need to be dedicated to Time Machine since it will automatically sync the files between your Mac and your hard drive.
It’s fairly simple to setup Time Machine:
- Connect your external hard drive to your Mac.
- Open “Time Machine” in your System Preferences and click on “Select Backup Disk.”
- Find your external hard drive in the list and click on “Use Disk.” If you want, you can encrypt your backups if you’re using FileVault.
- After returning to the main Time Machine settings menu, the toggle switch will be set to “on” and data will be displayed regarding how much space you’ve got available, the date of your latest and oldest backups, and when your next backup will commence.
- Be sure to check the box to show Time Machine in the menu bar for your convenience.
- If you want, you can set up redundant backups with Time Machine if you feel the need to do so.
For much more information on Time Machine, check out the Rocket Yard’s collection of informational articles.
2) Install CleanMyMac
One of the most popular apps for Mac is CleanMyMac X ($9.99 per month after free trial). You might be familiar with this program since it’s been around for a long time. Today, it’s faster and more powerful than ever.
Available on Setapp, CleanMyMac X provides 3x faster performance than the previous version. What used to take minutes now takes mere seconds. Malware protection has been updated with a larger database than before, and optimization tools speed up your Mac to prevent frozen apps. CleanMyMac now conveniently displays your battery percent usage, Dropbox storage, and network speed.
3) Monitor Your Disks
SoftRAID is extremely powerful software with disk protection features you won’t find anywhere else. Whether you want to test a new disk before using it, an old disk before repurposing or find out if a disk is about to fail, SoftRAID has you covered.
Find out more about SoftRAID and how you can monitor your drive health and even speed up or add security to your entire system at SoftRAID.com.
Related: SoftRAID Version 5.7 with support for macOS Mojave
Schedule regular maintenance sessions
You don’t need to go overboard and repair disk permissions and defragment your hard drive at the end of every week. Just schedule a monthly routine to assess any issues, run a program like CleanMyMac, and check on your Time Machine backups. And maybe dust off your keyboard, too…
And most importantly, use DiskWarrior to rebuild disk directory.