Read Me First
Welcome to Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Third Edition, version 3.1, published in January 2019 by alt concepts inc. This book was written by Joe Kissell and edited by Caroline Rose.
Macs, like all machines, are prone to break down eventually—in either a physical sense (a component going bad) or a logical sense (files becoming corrupted, apps misbehaving). You can reduce the risk of such problems, and minimize the damage when they do occur, with a regular maintenance regimen. This book contains simple steps you can take to keep your Mac humming.
If you want to share this ebook with a friend, we ask that you do so as you would with a physical book: “lend” it for a quick look, but ask your friend to buy a copy for careful reading or reference. Discounted classroom and Mac user group copies are available.
Copyright © 2019, alt concepts inc. All rights reserved.
Updates and More
You can access extras related to this ebook on the web (use the link in Ebook Extras, near the end; it’s available only to purchasers). On the ebook’s Take Control Extras page, you can:
Download any available new version of the ebook for free, or buy any subsequent edition at a discount.
Download various formats, including PDF, EPUB, and Mobipocket. (Learn about reading on mobile devices on our Device Advice page.)
Read the ebook’s blog. You may find new tips or information, as well as a link to an author interview.
If you bought this ebook from the Take Control website, it has been added to your account, where you can download it in other formats and access any future updates. However, if you bought this ebook elsewhere, you can add it to your account manually; see Ebook Extras.
Basics
To review background information that might help you understand this book better, such as finding System Preferences and working with files in the Finder, I recommend reading Tonya Engst’s ebook Take Control of Mac Basics.
In this book, when I use the term disk by itself, I generally mean your Mac’s primary internal storage device—whether that’s a mechanical hard drive, an SSD, or other solid-state storage. (Apple, after all, still uses the term “Macintosh HD” as the default name for your Mac’s startup volume, even when it’s not stored on a hard disk.) A drive is a physical device for storing data; a single drive can comprise one or more volumes, or logical storage devices. The volume that contains the copy of macOS currently used to boot your Mac is your startup volume. I’ll specify hard drive when I need to talk specifically about the little boxes with spinning platters.
What’s New in Version 3.1
Version 3.1 is a minor revision that brings this book up to date with macOS 10.14 Mojave and various changes in third-party software. Along with numerous small edits, this version contains the following significant changes:
Explained the new user interface for automatic updates in Mojave and later; see Turn On Automatic App Store and macOS Updates
Updated the description of CleanMyMac to cover changes in the current version, CleanMyMac X
Removed outdated advice about Mac notebooks with removable batteries; see Exercise Your Notebook’s Battery
Added more recommendations for anti-malware apps; see Install Anti-Malware Software
Updated the list of browser extensions for blocking ads and cookies; see Delete Your Cookies
What Was New in the Third Edition
The third edition of this book (version 3.0) represented not only a change in its version number but also in its title. This book’s most recent ancestor in the Take Control series was Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Second Edition, which was published in March 2006 and last updated in August 2012. I subsequently acquired publication rights to the book, updated it significantly, and rereleased it with a new title (Maintaining Your Mac: A Joe On Tech Guide) in July 2015, followed by a version 1.1 update in June 2016 and a version 1.2 update in September 2016.
After I purchased Take Control Books from TidBITS Publishing Inc. in May 2017, I decided to bring this book back under the Take Control umbrella. That meant reverting to its previous title and incrementing the edition number by 1 (even though there was, in effect, another edition of the book between the second and third).
Along with hundreds of minor adjustments, here are the major changes between Maintaining Your Mac: A Joe On Tech Guide version 1.1 and Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac, Third Edition:
Updated the book for compatibility with macOS 10.13 High Sierra
Removed mentions of CrashPlan and replaced them with Backblaze (or other backup apps, as appropriate)
Revised my advice for automatic installation of system data files and security updates in Turn On Automatic App Store and macOS Updates
Added more detail about how much available disk space you may need in Clean Out Accumulated Cruft, and added a sidebar, How Much Disk Space Is Really Available?
Updated my recommendations about how much RAM you need in Be Sure You Have Enough RAM
Expanded and revised my advice about how to Use Optimized Storage
Updated the advice in Exercise Your Notebook’s Battery
Offered additional advice (and deleted some that’s no longer applicable) in Install Anti-Malware Software
Updated Delete Your Cookies to reflect recent browser versions
Added iStat Menus to the list of Monitoring Utilities