Maintenance Tool For Mac
As Macs continue to gain market share, there is an increased likelihood that you will have to support them if you are a tech. And even if you aren’t a tech, it’s good to know which tools are the best to use when it comes time to repair your own. I have put together a list of what are, in my opinion, the ten best repair tools for troubleshooting, diagnosing, and repairing a Mac. Many of them are free or offer a free trial.
OSx Sierra
Pro Maintenance Tools is a utility pack designed to keep your Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro machine running at optimal performance and help resolve problems when they arise. This Mac optimizer is available in three versions, namely free, professional and professional plus. Successively each version adds up more features for users to analyze their disk usage. For anyone who is looking for free version, the app will only fasten your Mac and protect privacy. Mac Tools Too l Trucks – Own Your Own Automotive Tool Franchise and Be Your Own Boss™ In addition to manufacturing a wide variety of outstanding automotive tools, Mac Tools provides one of the best franchise opportunities available to qualified candidates with a passion for the automotive industry. Tools for Maintenance at stewmac.com, your #1 source for luthier tools and supplies, guitar parts, and instrument hardware. Maintaining Mac OS X Much dubious advice is available concerning 'routine maintenance' of Mac® OS X. This FAQ, based on the 'Maintaining Mac OS X' chapter of our book, Troubleshooting Mac OS X, is intended to provide guidance on recommended maintenance and to dispel some common maintenance myths. TechTool Pro 10.1.1 - Hard drive and system repair-and-maintenance tool. Download the latest versions of the best Mac apps at safe and trusted MacUpdate Download, install, or update TechTool Pro for Mac from MacUpdate. As wisely said above, you can very well do without any special maintenance tool, because Mac OS X is very much a self-maintaining operating system: All Mac OS X needs to breathe well, is enough free space on the boot-drive, like at least 10% or 15% or so.
Disk Warrior Trial
Free Mac Disk Repair Software
TechTool Protogo
TechTool Protogo is a Mac repair program suite which contains three of Micromat’s best Mac repair tools; TechTool Pro 8, TechTool Pro Classic, and DiskStudio. Protogo creates a bootable Mac repair toolbox with these tools as well as any of your own tools on a portable hard drive or flash drive. You can then boot from this drive, bypassing the OS, and run diagnostics on a computer to determine problems. Protogo also allows you to repair and recover data from problematic hard drives as well as defragment, optimize, and securely delete data.
Cost: $129.99
Memtest OS X
Memtest OS X is a memory testing program for Mac OS X. It is a command line utility so it can be ran in OS X or in Single-User Mode if your Mac will not boot. It is great for testing intermittent system problems when you are having trouble determining if it is a memory problem. If you prefer memtest with a GUI front-end, then be sure to check out Rember. Rember will run in OS X but will not work in Single-User Mode so Memtest OS X is the better option.
Cost: $1.39
Mac Disk Repair – DiskWarrior 4
Disk Repair for Macs – DiskWarrior utilizes a unique disk repair method for Macs
DiskWarrior is arguably one of the best hard drive repair programs for the Mac. It works differently than other data repair programs. Instead of trying to rebuild the damaged data itself, DiskWarrior builds replacement data based off of the original data. It then verifies the new data structure based on the original to make sure it is error free. You can also use DiskWarrior as a preventative maintenance utility for hard disks. When run, it rebuilds your directory eliminating any damage that you may not be aware of. It also optimizes the directory for better performance.
Cost: $99.95
If it is more serious and your Mac’s hard drive has crashed, I have provided an extensive data recovery guide with a list of Hard Drive Recovery Tools in my article How to Recover Data from a Crashed Hard Drive.
OnyX
Onyx is a maintenance, optimization, and personalization utility for Mac OS X. It allows you to run hard drive diagnostics, run system maintenance tasks, delete caches, and configure tons of OS X hidden features. Even if you aren’t using it as a repair utility, it is a great application to help keep your Mac running in top shape.
Cost: Free!
Mac Data Rescue
Data Rescue is a data recovery program that focuses purely on recovering data from corrupt drives instead of hard drive repair. It scans the corrupt drive analyzing all of its contents and allows you to choose which data you would like to recover. It even scans for deleted files. Data Rescue II restores the data to a separate drive leaving the original data intact. It comes with an emergency boot CD that you can use to recover data when the computer will not boot and it also works on drives that won’t mount.
Cost: $99.00
AppCleaner
AppCleaner may not be classified as a repair tool but it can be used as one. When you are having trouble with an application in OS X, you can simply remove it by dragging it to the Trash. However, this still leaves behind the applications preferences, caches, and other files that could still cause the same problem after you reinstall it. AppCleaner will remove all of these files making sure that the app is completely gone before you attempt a reinstall.
Cost: Free!
Drive Genius
Drive Genius is a disk utility application for Macs. Its main features include defragmenting, running benchtests, directory repair, integrity checks, surface scans, repartitioning, cloning, shredding data, and more. This is actually the same program used to defrag Macs at the Genius Bar in Apple Stores. Drive Genius also comes on a bootable DVD so you can run it even when a Mac will not boot.
Cost: $99.00
Mac Backup – Carbon Copy Cloner
Carbon Copy Cloner is a simple yet very effective backup utility for the Mac. Like most other backup utilities, it can be scheduled to backup your Mac on a regular basis. The best part, however, is its ability to completely clone a hard drive with it still being bootable. This tool comes in very handy when you are replacing hard drives, setting up multiple Macs, or recovering from a system crash. Carbon Copy Cloner is donation-ware so you can download it for free without any restrictions. You can also check out SuperDuper which has more features but costs $27.95. However, if you just need a simple backup and cloning utility, Carbon Copy Cloner does a great job.
Cost: Free! (donation-ware)
Apple Mac Disk Repair – AppleJack
AppleJack is a troubleshooting utility for Mac OS X. It runs under Single-User Mode so it can be used even when OS X will not boot. AppleJack will repair disks, repair permissions, cleanup cache files, validate preference files, and remove swap files. You can select these tasks individually or have AppleJack run all of them and even reboot when finished. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this article, AppleJack is not yet compatible with Leopard but a new version is in the works. Be sure to check their page frequently for an update because this is an invaluable tool.
Cost: Free! (open-source)
Hardware Monitor
Hardware Monitor is a utility that allows you to view data from the hardware sensors in a Mac. It currently has support for temperature readings, battery data, voltage, current, fan speed, power and load, ambient light, as well as user-defined artificial sensors. It’s a great utility to use when simply trying to find out if your hardware is malfunctioning.
Cost: € 7.00 (can also be purchased with U.S. Dollars)
OSX disk repair -Leopard
This is kind of a nice segway into handy hardware tools and toolkits. Click on the following link if you want to see some great ideas on what I recommend for your Mac or PC Repair Toolkit.
As you may know, I believe your should support Macs in your Computer IT Consultant Business. I state my case here in my article on Why You Should Support Macs With Your IT Business.
Well if you were counting, that is 4 totally free Mac OSX disk repair utilities, and one so cheap it may as well be free! The best Mac repair disk software may well be a paid one depending on your exact needs, and I’ve shown you my pick for the best of those too.
Excellent Mac disk repair software is provided above, for you to consider and try if you like. What Mac OS X repair tools do you like? Is there another Mac Disk Repair utility you’d suggest? Please leave a comment to help others, or if the above tools have helped you. And as for hardware, click this link if you want to repair hard drive-Mac.
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Maintaining Mac OS X
Much dubious advice is available concerning 'routine maintenance' of Mac® OS X.
This FAQ, based on the 'Maintaining Mac OS X' chapter of our book, Troubleshooting Mac OS X, is intended to provide guidance on recommended maintenance and to dispel some common maintenance myths.
Recommended maintenance
The only routine maintenance steps we recommend are the following:
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| Monthly: |
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| As needed: | Occasionally — monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly as you see fit — check your hard disks by performing Steps 1 and 2 of the Procedure in our 'Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption' FAQ. |
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Maintenance myths
Most of the activities portrayed as maintenance by tools like Cocktail, Onyx, Yasu, and others are, in fact, troubleshooting steps.
Accordingly, cache cleaning, repairing permissions, prebinding, and other tasks not listed in the 'Recommended Maintenance' section above are not regular maintenance tasks.
In some cases, such as System cache cleaning, they can have unintended consequences. For this reason, we advise against enabling any automated maintenance features of third-party utilities other than a feature for running the standard UNIX maintenance scripts automatically.
We will now dispel some common maintenance myths.
Cache cleaning
System and User cache cleaning are troubleshooting steps, not part of regular maintenance.
Caches are used to improve the performance of both the operating system and applications. Removing System and User cache files for other than troubleshooting purposes defeats the purpose of cache files, which will be rebuilt automatically at your next restart or login, adding time to those processes.
Potential side effects of System-level cache cleaning are discussed in our 'Side effects of System cache cleaning' FAQ.
Accordingly, cache cleaning can be an important troubleshooting step, such as when used in our 'Resolving Disk, Permission, and Cache Corruption' FAQ, but it is not regular maintenance.
Defragmenting hard drives
If your hard drive is nearly full or if you engage in video editing, you may see some performance benefit from defragmenting. Otherwise, there is little benefit from defragmenting as discussed in the AppleCare® Knowledge Base document 'About Disk Optimization in Mac OS X.'
Before using a third-party defragmentation utility, assure that it is compatible with the version of Mac OS X you are using and with your type of Mac, i.e. Intel®- or PowerPC™-based.
Repair Permissions
There is considerable debate about performing Repair Permissions as part of regular maintenance. Our advice is that it is a good, prophylactic step after installing third-party software that employs its own installer. This is primarily due to the fact that some poorly-written third-party installers have been known to change permissions on system-related folders, then failed to set them back, causing problems after the installation.
Repairing permissions has gained the undeserved status of a magic incantation that can fix anything; some recommend it as part of regular maintenance. While it can be a useful troubleshooting step, we do not regard it as part of regular maintenance: it will not hurt anything, but running it unnecessarily wastes time.
For additional information on Repair Permissions, see the section 'The Repair Disk Permissions function' of our 'The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?' FAQ.
Update prebinding
In general terms, prebinding is a process that enables applications to launch quickly and incorporate newly-installed fixes and changes, primarily at the system level.
Under Mac OS 10.4 Tiger® and later, changes in the operating system have eliminated the need to update prebinding, even for most troubleshooting purposes. For details, see:
- The 'Frameworks and Prebinding' section of the 'Frameworks and Binding' chapter of the Apple Developer Connection document Framework Programming Guide.
- The 'Prebinding Your Application' chapter of the Apple Developer Connection document Launch Time Performance Guidelines.
Video Repair Tool For Mac
For earlier versions of Mac OS X, a cogent description of prebinding — sometimes referred to as optimizing — is Bill Bumgarner's article 'Prebinding Explained.' While this may not be light reading for some, it provides a thorough explanation.
When the Mac OS X Installer displays Optimizing... at the end of a Software Update, it is updating the prebinding of the system. In this way, the Installer's Optimizing... phase and prebinding are synonymous. This phase is considerably shorter under Mac OS X 10.4 and later as other improvements related to prebinding have enabled this phase to be limited to the prebinding of select, system-related frameworks.
Mac OS X has long had the ability to automatically address prebinding issues. If an application could not be launched prebound, it would require more time to load than a similarly-complex prebound application. Mac OS X would also attempt to correct the prebinding for applications that were not prebound. With the improvements introduced in Tiger, whether or not an application is prebound is generally an insignificant factor with respect to its launch time.
Maintenance Software For Mac
Therefore, updating the prebinding of your Mac OS X installation is not maintenance. At best, it is a rarely-used troubleshooting step employed to resolve widespread problems with slow application launch times in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther® and earlier, primarily in Mac OS X 10.3.4 and earlier.