The great thing about a Mac is they make life easy. Although it's possible, it's not very often you hear of a Mac getting infected by a virus, being rerouted to malware, spontaneously crashing, or needing to be updated every week. But despite that, there are still a few things you should be doing to make sure your Mac lives long and prospers.


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  • Back Up Your Computer
    This is one of the most basic tips out there, but also one of the most under-utilized. If your Mac were to crash tonight, how easily would you be able to recover documents, pictures, songs, movies, and everything else you have stored on there? Unless your answer is "in a snap", you need to backup. And if you're still not convinced, ask yourself which you'd prefer: taking 10 minutes to back up all your data, or spending hours - maybe days - and hundreds of dollars to have a pro do it for you in an emergency? You're probably willing to wait 10 minutes in a line at the supermarket, and this is no different. At least you get to stay in your pyjamas, at home, while you backup your Mac.

  • Run Disk Utility
    Once or twice a month, run Disk Utility to repair permissions and keep your hard drive in check. This step isn't as crucial as the first one, but it's a good complement to everything else you're doing to keep your Mac running smoothly. You can find Disk Utility in the Applications/Utilities folder and depending on how you've organized your folders, it should be about halfway down.

  • Update Your Software
    Although Mac isn't nearly as bad as Adobe in sending you software updates, you should listen to your computer every time that box pops up. Software updates don't just give you the latest program version, but also bug fixes, security fixes, and feature enhancements.

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  • Clean Up Your Desktop
    It may not seem like a big deal, but the more cluttered your desktop is, the more RAM is being used...and the slower your MacBook will run. Each icon takes a little bit of RAM to preview it and collectively, all those pictures and programs you have combine to use up a lot of juice. Just like you would on your iPhone, create folders and organize from there.

  • Turn It Off
    With RAM staying powered up in both Sleep and Safe Sleep modes (but not Hibernation), it's tempting to just close the lid on your laptop and have it boot right up the next time you use it. But imagine if someone did that to you, never letting you fall into a deep sleep before poking you awake? Over time, you'd get pretty cranky and sluggish, eventually shutting down to protect your core. Your MacBook is essentially the same, so send it off into Dreamland each night for its own good.

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