Using OnyX to keep your Mac clean and tidy
OnyX (titanium.free.fr) is a handy app for performing Mac maintenance. It can also turn on hidden functions and assist you in cleaning up your Mac. If you have Gatekeeper enabled you’ll need to right-click the app and choose Open, and then press the Open button in the next dialog to allow OnyX to run.
On first run, OnyX has to verify the startup disk, a process that may take some time. It’s important to use Time Machine or another backup solution prior to running OnyX as it can make changes to the file structure.
You’ll find a tutorial about other things OnyX can do on page 52 of this issue. 1 Under Maintenance, you can check the startup disk’s structure and fix permissions, run OS X’s periodic maintenance scripts on demand, and fix service, cache and index problems. Check an option and click Execute to run it. 2 Under Cleaning, you can delete a wide range of system caches. This can recover storage space, although it can be counterproductive in the short run as apps use caches to load content, such as fonts, more quickly. 3 The Automation tab enables you to run a selection of operations to a schedule. There are three main sections: Maintenance, Rebuilding and Cleaning. Tick to select the options you want to run and click Execute. 4 On the Utilities tab, Terminal fans will appreciate manual pages for Unix commands. You can show and hide files, folders and even volumes here, and execute hard-to-find built-in apps such as Directory Utility. Geeks will enjoy rooting around here, but be careful before using some features. 5 Parameters enables you to adjust several defaults used in various places around OS X. You can disable visual effects and animations, Mission Control and Dashboard, and customise many hidden options in Finder, Dock, Safari and iTunes. Click Restore Defaults to return to the original settings. 6 Under Log you’ll find a list of all operations that have been executed by OnyX. Click ‘Reveal in the Finder’ to open a Finder window with the OnyX.log file selected. It’s a text file of this information, which you can search in TextEdit.