Spring cleaning your Mac

After years of use, you may have noticed that your Mac's slowing down a bit. To make matters worse, the space on your hard disk seems to have disappeared, leaving only a few megabytes. Even the keyboard is beginning to look old and grungy. If your system has reached this point, it sounds like it's time for a little Macintosh spring cleaning.

If you're like most Macintosh users, you use your computer for almost everything. Although it's great to get so much out of your machine, you need to schedule a little downtime to clean your Mac, inside and out. That means getting rid of extraneous files, defragmenting the hard disk, doing a few tests on your hard disk, and yes, even scrubbing some of the dirt off your keyboard. In this article, we'll show you how to make quick work of spring cleaning your Mac.

Making room on your hard disk

You may be quickly running out of space on your hard disk if it contains a lot of useless files. Let's first take a look at a few ways to reclaim hard disk space.

Removing those old files

If you're a pack rat, your hard disk probably contains a lot of files that you're saving just in case you need them. If you really must save them but the chances are slim that you'll ever need them again, use StuffIt to archive the files and load them onto floppies or other removable media.

Stopping duplication

As you look through various folders on your hard disk, you'll probably encounter a good deal of duplication. For instance, you probably have the SimpleText application in at least two places on your computer. That's because some software installers include the application with their program, just in case you don't have it on your computer anymore.

Must kill aliases

Aliases are very handy, but if you encounter the message box shown in Figure A, you've probably thrown the aliased application away. If that's the case, toss the alias file as well.

Figure A: An alias to a missing application isn't very useful.

How many modems do you really own?

If you've installed any telecommunication software on your Mac, you probably have close to 100 extra files on your computer. The files are preference settings for several different brands and models of modems. Find your brand of modem and delete the others. If you purchase a new modem anytime soon, you can always get the right preferences setting from the online service-before you install the new modem.

How far to go with extensions

When you open your System Folder, you might find the two folders that contain junk files-Shutdown Items (Disabled) and System Extensions (Disabled), as shown in Figure B. Be careful here, since there may be important files that you've disabled for one reason or another. However, if either folder contains files for applications that you no longer use, throw them away. You can always reinstall the software to add the extensions.

Figure B: If an item is disabled, there's a good chance you can toss it.

While we're talking about the extensions, you probably don't need all the voice files unless you're a big user of PlainTalk. Fred, the default voice, is included in the PlainTalk software, so you can remove all the files in the Voices folder if you wish. While you're scouring the System Folder, don't forget to examine the Preferences and Fonts folders. They probably contain several files you no longer use. Throw away the extraneous preference files, but archive the fonts before you trash them, since you might need them again someday.

Optimizing free space

Removing or archiving files that you may never again use is a great way to reclaim valuable disk space. In fact, you'll really be amazed to see how much space you can clear up. But, now that you have all this free space, you still need to optimize the speed of your hard disk. Let's take a look at why this is necessary and how you can do it.

Defragmenting your hard disk

When you save a file to your hard disk, the Mac looks for the first available space to load the file. It then begins to write the file to the space. When the space is filled, the Mac then must look elsewhere on the disk to store the remainder of the file. This means that portions of a file or application may reside on two or more places on the hard disk. This is called file fragmentation.

A large number of fragmented files on your hard disk increases the time it takes for your computer to access a file. While there's currently no way to keep a hard disk from becoming fragmented, occasionally you can optimize it by using one of the commercial hard disk utility programs.

Norton Utilities' Speed Disk application also lets you optimize a hard disk by grouping similar file types. For instance, it copies all the directory and system files to the first blocks on the hard disk, since those files are always in use and probably won't vary in size over time.

Other applications that let you defragment a hard disk include Disk First Aid and Mac Tools Deluxe. Shy away from shareware or freeware programs that promise to defragment your hard disk. Your data's too important to trust to a $15 program that someone wrote in a couple of weeks.

Scrubbing your Mac

Now that your Mac's feeling at tip-top shape inside, it's time to move to outside appearances. First, if you're cleaning the outside of your Mac, remember to be gentle. While the surface of the computer may be grungy, solvents can damage the plastic. Use only mild soap and water when you clean your Mac.

Obviously, be very careful with the water. It's best to unplug the computer, clean the machine with a damp cloth, and wait several hours before turning it on again. That way, if any water got in the keyboard or other vital places, you can give it a chance to evaporate. Also, while you're at it, you might as well open the mouse and clean out the cobwebs.

Conclusion

Your hard disk will begin to slow down as it gets full and fragmented. It's important to regularly check your hard disk for extraneous files that you can trash, and then defragment the hard disk. In this article, we've explained how to spruce up your Mac.

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