Spring Clean Servicing for OSX

Spring Clean Servicing for OSX

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Tis that time of year again, (well, here in Australia it is), and what better time to give your Mac a quick service and a ‘spring clean’.
Recently, I had an issue where my screen was flickering, almost like the vertical hold of an old TV, where lines would appear horizontally across the screen, sometimes making it completely illegible. Time for a few tricks, to clean the PRAM, repair disk and clean caches..
It sorted my problem out, so no need for a apple store visit, or support call. (but, in my past experience, apple support staff have always been amazing, able to help and would recommend their services if needed.. this is just few quick exercises you can do yourself that will sort out majority of issues and speed your baby up a bit).

1: Cleaning the PRAM:
PRAM (or parallel random-access machine) is similar to RAM, which most people will be aware improves performance and, as a guide, the more you have, the faster your machine will be able to calculate things, and in turn be ‘faster’.

STEP 1: Shut down your machine, first hold down ‘R’,’P’,’option/alt’ and ‘command’ (as shown below).part1-pram1Now press and hold the power also. Hold ALL 5 buttons down until you hear the start up tone for a THIRD time, then release.

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Congratulations, you have just reset your PRAM.

 

2: Repairing the Disk:
Without needing expensive third party software, the OSX actually can repair 99% of problems itself, this includes file permissions and other random things that sometimes affect a machines performance.

STEP 1: Shut down your machine again, then restart, this time holding down ‘R’, and ‘command’ (as shown below), then press and hold the power. Hold all 3 buttons until you see the Apple logo, then release.

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STEP 2: Choose your desired language, and then the OSX Utilities will appear, select ‘Disk Utility’ (as shown below)

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STEP 3: Choose Macintosh HD, then click on the ‘Repair Disk’ button.

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Voila!

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3: Deleting Cache Files:
Over time the cache memory will get filled with lots of files, which are not really needed, and can be the cause of some performance issues or conflicts, deleting them can often do wonders.

STEP 1: Shut down your machine again, then restart, this time holding down just the ‘shift’ button, then press and hold the power. Hold the 2 buttons until you see the Apple logo, then release. This will star your Mac up in ‘safe’ mode, with many of the extensions disabled.

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STEP 2: We are going to navigate to the ‘launch agents’ folder, which hidden by default.. so here’s a good tip.. As shown below, if you scroll over the ‘Go’ Menu item and see the list, the one we want, which is the ‘Library’ is not visible..

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STEP 2 (continued): Simply hold down the ‘alt/option’ key and you will see the ‘Library’ folder appear, open it.

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STEP 3: Open up the folders ‘Caches’, ‘Cookies’ and ‘LaunchAgents’ (as shown below), and delete ALL of the files in them. (DO NOT delete the actual folders themselves, only the contents)part3-safemode4

You’re done.. simply restart as usual, and your Mac should be happier and running better than before. It’s helped me out a few times, hope it helps you.

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