Do i need to clean my imac?
Hi, I am new to Apple and I have an iMac 27 2.7 GHz intel i5 with 16 gb of RAM and a 1 TB hard drive. Do I need to clean the hard drive and defragment it as I used to with my windows based machines?
It seems to freeze and slow down occasionally and sometimes doesnt shut down.
Under Mac OS X defragmentation doesn't need to be done, as far as i can remember Mac OS X does this to a degree by itself.
when you say 'cleaning', emptying the trash, clearing the browser cache and things like that will speed up your Mac.
Just try to not have too many apps and whatnot open at once and it shouldn't freeze or slow down.
Hope that helps.
Similar Messages
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I have an old imac G3 desk top computer that I would like to donate. I need to clean up the hard drive. HOw do I do this?
If you have a Mac OS 8.x or 9.x CD (depending on the iMac model), look for a Drive Setup utility somewhere on that disc. Boot from the CD while holding down the C key. Initialise the hard disk with a 'Zero all data' option chosen.
Jan -
I keep getting offers to clean my imac, Mackeeper its called is it a good idea to use this or not?
Ikeep getting offers to clean my imac, the offer is from mackeeper, one should a person clean the mac, and if so is this the product to use or not.
If it were that good, every-other post here would be recommending it. (None do.)
Instead, it is like online SPAM -- in your face, trying to sell you garbage.
Everything you have to have to keep your Mac working right is already installed at the factory. In certain unusual situations, you may need another program or two. Nothing is needed to clean your Mac -- it does not get filthy. -
Hello!
I'm just curious how often you all dust/clean your iMac? I've noticed that my iMac gets pretty dust (new house), and I was just wondering how often I should be dusting it.
Also, what is the best way to clean dirt off the keyboard keys (wireless keyboard)?
Lastly, is it worth opening up my iMac to clean the dust out of it?
Thanks much!Hello Hoff81
{quote:}I'm just curious how often you all dust/clean your iMac? I've noticed that my iMac gets pretty dust (new house), and I was just wondering how often I should be dusting it.{quote}
As per page 67 of your User's Guide, slightly dampen the little micro fiber cloth and wipe it off.
http://manuals.info.apple.com/enUS/iMac_Mid2010UG.pdf
{quote:}Also, what is the best way to clean dirt off the keyboard keys (wireless keyboard)?{quote}
A dampened soft lint free cloth
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3226
{quote:}Lastly, is it worth opening up my iMac to clean the dust out of it?{quote}
If you periodically shut down (stopping the fans) and vacuum the air intakes (the bottom grill and small vent on the back under the stand) you should not need to open it up for years. The trick is to not touch or disturb any dust that builds up on the grills when the fans are running.
Do not blow air into the intakes, all that will do is blow dust deeper into the iMac.....
I have vacuumed the air intakes on my iMac every three months sense Jan of 2006 and it runs as cool as the day I bought it. I opened it up in Jan of 2009 to upgrade the Hard Drive and there was almost no dust collected on the fans or anywhere on the inside.
Dennis -
What is the best software to clean an iMac?
I bought 'MacKeeper' and installed it, and it promptly screwed up my iMac so badly that I had to re-format and reload S/ Leopard from scratch. What a serious waste of money - be warned!
DavidCarolyn Samit wrote:
Third party maintenance utilities are unnecessary.
Leave your Mac on one night a month, (not in Sleep mode), and the maintenance tasks will be run for you between 03:15 to 05:30.
Mac OS X: About background maintenance tasks
This advice is also (mostly) unnecessary, on any Mac with Snow Leopard. From the same article linked above:
In Mac OS X v10.6 and later, background maintenance tasks that do not run when the computer is asleep are run after it wakes from sleep mode.
No need to leave the computer on, just sleep it.
Also, it is important to understand that the overnight "maintenance tasks" have very little, if any, actual impact on performance. They do a few things, but they don't really do very much. The more important types of maintenance are fully automatic and out of our hands, such as the way OS X allocates and cleans up disk space (e.g. auto-defragmenting), RAM, and the file system. Those happen constantly.
I've run Macs for many years and under the current OS X there is just about no user-driven maintenance left to do, compared to earlier versions of the system. I have no maintenance software. I used to buy it, but as OS X has advanced, I no longer have to. I have software for when something goes wrong, like advanced disk utilities, but that's not maintenance, that's for recovery.
Why did you feel it was necessary to "clean" the iMac? That's something many Mac users, including myself, never do.
I rarely even clean out caches, and here's why: The entire point of caches is to speed things up by making frequently accessed data more rapidly accessible. By throwing out the caches, you guarantee that the Mac will be slower for a period of time until the caches are fully rebuilt. So I never throw out caches unless there is a problem. Doing it regularly...as "maintenance"...only guarantees that you slow down your Mac on a regular basis. -
My school just got 7 (count 'em 7!) rev b bondi iMacs donated. Unfortunately, they came from a vet office with lots of hair and dandruff floating around, so, as you can imagine they got very dirty. So, my question is what is the best way to clean these macs and what could be damaged?. I have an air compressor and bottled air and have taken a bunch of (mostly newer) iMacs apart. Thanks for the help!
iMac Mac OS X (10.4.3)I cleaned my iMac by taking it apart, however working around the CRT can be deadly. CRTs need to be discharged before even coming close to touching them. That said, I didn't use much compressed air because, in many areas, it would have blown the dust further down inside. I used dampened rags and paper towels and a dampened soft paint brush to lift the dust off, only using compressed air when I could blow the debris away from the iMac.
The bottom comes off first, then the front panel, then the back (colored) part.
<http://homepage.mac.com/dreed2/PhotoAlbum52.html>
There are some manuals listed here for Bondi iMacs, but I haven't downloaded them to check them out yet. Gotta get back to work on installing the new kitchen floor.
Good luck with those iMacs.
Message was edited by: dreed2 (forgot to include a link) -
Many times my computer takes too long to connect to new website. I have wireless internet (time capsule) and I am running a pretty powerful real time financial work program at same time, what is the best solution? Upgrading speed from cable network? is it a hard drive issue? do I only need to "clean out" the computer? Or all of the above...not to computer saavy. It is a Macbook Pro osx 10.6.8 (late 2010).
Almost certainly none of the above! Try each of the following in this order:
Select 'Reset Safari' from the Safari menu.
Close down Safari; move <home>/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db to the trash; restart Safari.
Change the DNS servers in your network settings to use the OpenDNS servers: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220
Turn off DNS pre-fetching by entering the following command in Terminal and restarting Safari:
defaults write com.apple.safari WebKitDNSPrefetchingEnabled -boolean false -
I have more than one copy of the same song in my iTunes. Some have the icloud symbol next to them and some do not. I need to clean this up but I am afraid to delete the songs for fear I will lose them. Please help! On top of that my Mac keeps telling me my start up disc is full and I am deleting stuff like crazy!
Welcome to the Discussion Forums
It won't be a problem if you delete your extra copies.
I don't download very much to my tv, I do sometimes if I'm in bed but usually I do it from itunes. However if you have not fully downloaded something to the tv it is possible to start the download from itunes as well, you have likely activated 'check for downloads fin itunes in some way, could be by opening itunes, selecting 'check or downloads' from the advanced menu or that you simply have automatically check for downloads set in your prefs and it has checked coincidentally. -
I have a mac book pro with Boot Camp that also runs windows. I upgraded to Lion and now the mac side crashes/freezes periodically, especially iphoto. I am told by the genius' that I probably need to "clean" it and reinstall lion using the "recovery drive" which resets everything back to default and reinstalls the lion operating system. My question is will this also delete the "windows" partition drive and all that data too. If so that will be a huge pain in the ___ to back up and reinstall boot camp and windows. I want to shoot the lion.
There is no system like Acronis for the Mac platform. You can try using the buiilt in Disk Utility to create an Image of the complete Mac drive but I have found that this does not work very well as on tryiing to restore it gives errors sometimes.
You can use SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner to create a bootable Clone of your system partition. But that is only for the System partition and not the complete drive.
If you use Boot Camp to install Windows on your Mac neither of those two programs will clone the Windows side.
Neither will Disk utility as Mac's can not create or write to a NTFS partition. So some other program is need for that. -
I need to use my iMac to run some Windows software not available for Mac and was thinking of obtaining Parrallels Desktop 9 to help with this. If I use Parrallels do you still have to partitian your drive and does this leave you open to viruses?
You do not have to partition your drive - Parallels creates a disk image which contains your Windows installation. You do have to exercise anti-virus measures in the Windows partition, although such malware cannot affect the Mac filesystem.
Matt -
When I am surfing the web other websites pop up saying I need to clean my mac out or I am a winner of something. I just got my Mac so I'm not sure how this happened.
You may have installed the "VSearch" trojan, perhaps under a different name. Remove it as follows.
Malware is constantly changing to get around the defenses against it. The instructions in this comment are valid as of now, as far as I know. They won't necessarily be valid in the future. Anyone finding this comment a few days or more after it was posted should look for more recent discussions or start a new one.
Back up all data before proceeding.
Step 1
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
/Library/LaunchAgents/com.vsearch.agent.plist
Right-click or control-click the line and select
Services ▹ Reveal in Finder (or just Reveal)
from the contextual menu.* A folder should open with an item named "com.vsearch.agent.plist" selected. Drag the selected item to the Trash. You may be prompted for your administrator login password.
Repeat with each of these lines:
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.vsearch.daemon.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.vsearch.helper.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons/Jack.plist
Restart the computer and empty the Trash. Then delete the following items in the same way:
/Library/Application Support/VSearch
/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/Jack
/System/Library/Frameworks/VSearch.framework
~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ConduitNPAPIPlugin.plugin
Some of these items may be absent, in which case you'll get a message that the file can't be found. Skip that item and go on to the next one. Even if you find none of the items listed in this step, go on to Step 2.
Step 2
From the Safari menu bar, select
Safari ▹ Preferences... ▹ Extensions
Uninstall any extensions you don't know you need, including any that have the word "Spigot," "Trovi," or "Conduit" in the description. If in doubt, uninstall all extensions. Do the equivalent for the Firefox and Chrome browsers, if you use either of those.
Reset the home page and default search engine in all the browsers, if it was changed.
This trojan is distributed on illegal websites that traffic in pirated content. If you, or anyone else who uses the computer, visit such sites and follow prompts to install software, you can expect much worse to happen in the future.
You may be wondering why you didn't get a warning from Gatekeeper about installing software from an unknown developer, as you should have. The reason is that this Internet criminal has a codesigning certificate issued by Apple, which causes Gatekeeper to give the installer a pass. Apple could revoke the certificate, but as of this writing, has not done so, even though it's aware of the problem. This failure of oversight has compromised both Gatekeeper and the Developer ID program. You can't rely on Gatekeeper alone to protect you from harmful software.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return. -
Do I need to clean my computer like I did with my Dell?
Hi I have a MacBook Air
I was wondering if I need to clean up records etc like I did on my old Dell computer. I know very little about computers.
Thanks DennisNo. Any one or any thing that recommends you "clean" your Mac should elicit a visceral negative reaction.
If you're having trouble with your Mac explain what it is. Make no attempt to "clean" it, unless you want to create real problems. For more information read below.
There will always be threats to your information security associated with using any Internet - connected communications tool:
You can mitigate those threats by following commonsense practices
Delegating that responsibility to software is an ineffective defense
Assuming that any product will protect you from those threats is a hazardous attitude that is likely to result in neglecting point #1 above.
OS X already includes everything it needs to protect itself from viruses and malware. Keep it that way with software updates from Apple.
A much better question is "how should I protect my Mac":
Never install any product that claims to "clean up", "speed up", "optimize", "boost" or "accelerate" your Mac; to "wash" it, "tune" it, or to make it "shiny". Those claims are absurd.Such products are very aggressively marketed. They are all scams.
Never install pirated or "cracked" software, software obtained from dubious websites, or other questionable sources.
Illegally obtained software is almost certain to contain malware.
"Questionable sources" include but are not limited to spontaneously appearing web pages or popups, download hosting sites such as C net dot com, Softonic dot com, Soft pedia dot com, Download dot com, Mac Update dot com, or any other site whose revenue is primarily derived from junk product advertisements.
If you need to install software that isn't available from the Mac App Store, obtain it only from legitimate sources authorized by the software's developer.
Don’t supply your password in response to a popup window requesting it, unless you know what it is and the reason your credentials are required.
Don’t open email attachments from email addresses that you do not recognize, or click links contained in an email:
Most of these are scams that direct you to fraudulent sites that attempt to convince you to disclose personal information.
Such "phishing" attempts are the 21st century equivalent of a social exploit that has existed since the dawn of civilization. Don’t fall for it.
Apple will never ask you to reveal personal information in an email. If you receive an unexpected email from Apple saying your account will be closed unless you take immediate action, just ignore it. If your iCloud, iTunes, or App Store account becomes disabled for valid reasons, you will know when you try to buy something or log in to this support site, and are unable to.
Don’t install browser extensions unless you understand their purpose:Go to the Safari menu > Preferences > Extensions. If you see any extensions that you do not recognize or understand, simply click the Uninstall button and they will be gone.
Don’t install Java unless you are certain that you need it:
Java, a non-Apple product, is a potential vector for malware. If you are required to use Java, be mindful of that possibility.
Java can be disabled in System Preferences.
Despite its name JavaScript is unrelated to Java. No malware can infect your Mac through JavaScript. It’s OK to leave it enabled.
The same precaution applies to Adobe Flash Player. Newly discovered Flash vulnerabilities appear almost weekly.
Beware spontaneous popups: Safari menu > Preferences > Security > check "Block popup windows".
Popup windows are useful and required for some websites, but unsolicited popups are commonly used to deceive people into installing unwanted software they would never intentionally install.
Popups themselves cannot infect your Mac, but many contain resource-hungry code that will slow down Internet browsing.
If you ever receive a popup window indicating that your Mac is infected with some ick or that you won some prize, it is 100% fraudulent. Ignore it.
The same goes for a spontaneously appearing dialog insisting that you upgrade your video player right this instant. Such popups are frequently associated with sites that promise to deliver "free" movies or other copyrighted content that is not normally "free".
The more insistent it is that you upgrade or install something, the more likely it is to be a scam. Close the window or tab and forget it.
Ignore hyperventilating popular media outlets that thrive by promoting fear and discord with entertainment products arrogantly presented as "news". Learn what real threats actually exist and how to arm yourself against them:
The most serious threat to your data security is phishing. Most of these attempts are pathetic and are easily recognized, but that hasn't stopped prominent public figures from recently succumbing to this age-old scam.
OS X viruses do not exist, but intentionally malicious or poorly written code, created by either nefarious or inept individuals, is nothing new.
Never install something without first knowing what it is, what it does, how it works, and how to get rid of it when you don’t want it any more.
If you elect to use "anti-virus" software, familiarize yourself with its limitations and potential to cause adverse effects, and apply the principle immediately preceding this one.
Most such utilities will only slow down and destabilize your Mac while they look for viruses that do not exist, conveying no benefit whatsoever - other than to make you "feel good" about security, when you should actually be exercising sound judgment, derived from accurate knowledge, based on verifiable facts.
Do install updates from Apple as they become available. No one knows more about Macs and how to protect them than the company that builds them.
Summary: Use common sense and caution when you use your Mac, just like you would in any social context. There is no product, utility, or magic talisman that can protect you from all the evils of mankind. -
I've ordered a new mac book pro 15" and i need to clean hard drive off my old PC...not really to move them to the mac, but just to save in case needed; mostly pics and office docs....any suggestions?
Buy an external USB hard drive and copy your data to it. Either that or burn them all to single or double layer DVDs (depending on amount of data you have). Or if it's really a small amount, consider putting it all on a USB memory stick.
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i need to connect my Imac 27'' (newest version) up to 3/4 monitors (all 40'' LCD tv's with VGA and HDMI connections) with extended display to all external screens, not duplicate images. Is this possible?
I would suggest you visit an Apple dealer, preferably an Apple Store if there's one in your city, and ask for assistance in determining what you need. The questions and issues you bring up are rather complex to address in a technical support forum and would be better addressed in person where you and the salesperson can ask questions back and forth to arrive at the optimal setup.
Regards. -
Do I need a clean Arch install to change DE or WM?
Hey all,
I'm new to Arch... well, I will be new to Arch. Still currently using Fedora. One of the things I'm doing right now is taking some time to read the wiki and fully embracing "The Arch Way."
Since I have the opportunity to build a system from the ground up, it's caused me to reconsider some of my pre-existing ideas. Like... do I need a full blown DE? The answer is probably not. All I do is listen to music, surf and code. Therefore, there's a lot I don't need.
I'm considering using these:
Gnome3
Openbox
Fluxbox
DWM
Xmonad
The problem is... I kind of want to try all of them. Well, except for Gnome3. I know what's up there.
Will it be relatively simple to just use pacman to change my DE or WM? Or do I need to cleanly install Arch? The answer will have some bearing on how long it takes me to move forward.You can have multiple ones going no problem, the idea is super simple, you either install a display manager to graphically choose which environment you want, or you set up your .xinitrc like the previous poster mentioned to include the multiple environments. The Wiki usually covers near everything you could possibly need including things from the aur in depth.
I personally prefer the .xinitrc way because it's simpler. startx will start whichever you specified as your main de, and xinit gnome or xinit xfce, etc. will start the other enviroments.
My preference on a laptop is openbox and my preference on a desktop is kde. Make sure you follow the guide for openbox should you choose to use it, you need to copy a few default files to your .config folder. Also note that a fresh openbox install is pretty barebones and takes a while to configure. I like that stuff, but xfce might be a better choice if you don't.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/xinitrc explains how to set up your .xinitrc for multiple de's in detail, while configuring all the major display managers are explained in depth in their respective wikis.
Also note that its really easy to remove one if you don't like it, with just "pacman -Rs gnome" for example, which should remove it and all its standalone dependencies.
Last edited by xtraroot (2013-12-29 19:18:57)
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