Periodic Maintenance:
Weekly - Run Repair Permissions in Disk Utility
Once/month - Run "Verify Disk" in Disk Utility

Startup and insert the "Software Install CD", hold down "C" until "Welcome to Mac OS" window appears in the progress bar box.
Select "Open Disk Utility" from the "Installer" menu.
Do a Verify or Repair.

a 2005 MacWorld article Prevent Mac Disasters says to do the following once a month:
A 2008 Mac artaicle Five Mac maintenance myths says that's not necessary. You should only do it if you are having problems.

• Check preference files - "sudo plutil -s ~/Library/ Preferences/*.plist"
  It didn't work on 10.6
• Delete Cache Files - They can become corrupted.
  System: Library: Caches folder

  	~/library/Caches (2.8 GB)
  	  com.apple.Safari (335 MB)
  	  Google Earth (272 MB)
  	  Firefox (59 MB)
  	  com.google.UpdateEngine.Framework.502 (55 MB)
  	  Others < 50 MB
  	/library/Caches (1.4 MB)
  	

• Delete Log Files - Log files donŐt normally grow excessively large, so you can delete them only when you want to reclaim drive space.
  /var/log and /Library/Logs
  ~/Library/Logs (132 MB)

  	Some utilities which will do it are:
  	Alsoft Diskwarrior
  	Micromat TechTool Pro 4
  	Titanium OnyX
  	

Check microsoft.com/mac/downloads.aspx for Office Updates

Every couple of months - Calibrate the battery on laptops.

Run cron jobs manually:
1. sudo /etc/daily
2. sudo /etc/weekly
3. sudo /etc/monthly

Important Unix Files
/etc/crontab - Jobs that run automatically (usually at night)
/var/log - System Log files
/Volumes - External disks

Essentials
Daniel M. East, President
The Apple Groups Team (TAGteam)
www.applegroups.org
deast@applegroups.org

DiskWarrior
Tech Tool Pro/DiskStudio
Cocktail
YASU

Drive Genius PRO247 (25% discount to all MUGS

TinkerTool
Mac Tracker
PrintSetupRepair
unexpected quit document for 10.3x
BootCD
mac.about.com
macfixit.com
Suitcase
fontfinagler
FontDoctor
www.macsimumnews.com or liveinvite.com/macsimumnews/

Critical Utilities
comp.sys.mac.apps/ Troubleshooting

Keyboard Shortcuts - Special Key sequences
Magical Macintosh Key Sequences
Keyboard Shortcuts at Mac Central
Firefox keyboard shortcuts
Google Chrome keyboard and mouse shortcuts
Mac Win Man - MWM for short - a unified Mac OS X Desktop Window and Application Manager

Misc
OS X Performance tuning for G3 Macs

Fonts
See Fonts Page.

Installing upgrades

• Run disk utility, Verify disk and Repair permissions.
• Backup
• Remove all peripherals (optional
• Check if you need any drivers or firmware upgrades for third party peripherals attached.
• Make sure automatic Energy Saver settings for hard disk are turned off. If the hard disk spins down while the update is being performed, the update may not complete.
• Check to see if any Appl. need to be upgraded
• When installing the update, and this has been true at least through 10.3.9, it has been recommended that you always use the "Combined" (Will update from older versions) instead of the "Delta" or "Software Update" (updates from last versiion) version of the Update.

Restoring Library Preferenes, ...
How to transfer Apps to a new Mac

Creating a Boot disk
Get a Firewire drive. (USB 2.0 drives will backup, but won't boot.)
Use DiskUtility or Carbon Copy Cloner to create a backup

1. Once every month or every other month do a full backup to an external drive. Turn on and plug in the external drive.
2. Open Disk Utility (in Applications>Utilities)
3. Click on your computer's main hard drive (the one with Mac OSX installed on it) in the left-hand column in Disk Utility. (Click on the same name as the drive name on your desktop).
4. Click the 'Restore' tab (Mac OSX 10.3 Panther required).
5. Drag your main hard drive into the 'Source' white field.
6. Drag your external FireWire drive into the 'Destination' white field. (make sure any other data on your FireWire drive is not the same name as anything on your main OSX drive, and that you have deleted any previous full backup by dragging everything to the trash and emptying it.
7. Click 'Restore' and it will copy all data across to your FireWire drive.
8. When it is finished, Go to System Preferences and click on Startup Disk, and select the External FireWire drive, then restart and make sure the computer is able to boot from the external drive. If it can, then everything went well, and you can unplug the FireWire drive.
9. To restore (if you ever need to do so), do all these steps, except hold down the 'Option' key at startup and choose to boot off the external FireWire drive, and put the FireWire drive into the 'Source' field, and your main drive into the 'Destination' field.

Freeing Disk Space
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk

Root Password / Superuser system/library/coreservices/directory utility
edit>enable root user

Security
OS X Security Configuration Guide (NSA)

See:
How to Create a Bootable Backup of Mac OS X (Cloning Mac OS X disks)
BACKUP STRATEGIES FOR OSX
The X Lab

www.apple.com/business/videotips
www.apple.com/pro/tips
www.apple.com/dotmac
www.macsurfer.com 
crucial.com RAM
Pay for help
linda.com - training
www.vtc.com$30/mo.


Other Links:

OS X Maintenance And Troubleshooting

Mac Info 
Use your Mac as a wireless AP at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.7/en/mchlp1540.html&login=email

last updated 6 Jan 2008