I'm looking for a shareware or inexpensive program that I can download that would be comparable to Aladdin Systems Spring Cleaning.

What feature of Spring Cleaning do you require that OS X does not perform natively? When I read through the poorly documented feature set on their web site, it looks like a recipe for disaster.

IMHO, the more you know about OS X, the less you need this type of thing. If you have little knowledge of OS X, you should avoid it like the plague.

Admittedly it was several years ago, but, for me, Spring Cleaning was a disaster.

Many users come to the Mac from the Windows world, thinking that frequent system maintenance is a madatory user activity for safety, security, and performance of the system. With a few exceptions, this is NOT required for OS X. This is what I do:

These maintenance and security tasks are performed one time, when installing a new operating system:

1. Configure Software Update to check daily for newer versions of Apple software.

2. Configure Time Machine to back up to an external drive, using the default settings.

3. Configure Safari to: accept cookies only from sites that I navigate to, NOT open "safe" files after downloading, and remove download list items after successful download.

4. Disable automatic login

5. Create a second administrator account to be used in the rare event that I cannot login to my primary account.

These tasks are performed only as required, to keep everything working correctly:

1. Use Disk Utiltiy to Verify/Repair Permissions after installing new applications, especially if they are not from Apple.

2. Use Disk Utility to Verify/Repair Disk, then use SuperDuper! or Disk Utility to clone my system drive to an additional external hard drive (not the Time Machine drive) before each major operating system update/upgrade.

There is no need to:

1. Defragment the drive, EVER

2. Empty caches, as long as the application affected is not having a problem caused by a corrupted cache

3. Delete cookies, unless you are trying to solve a problem caused by corrupted or insecure cookies

If you're coming from Windows, put your feet up and enjoy the ride. Read a good book. Go outside and do something physical. Spend time with someone that you care about. At least 90% of the time and money that you used to spend just keeping the wheels from falling off of your Windows system can now be used for something productive.

Excellent summary Michael.

I am going to link to it from the "switcher" post in the Tips & Tricks section.

I did have one situation (only one since 2001) where I needed to defrag my drive.

I have a 320GB drive in my MacBook and was using it as a media center. After a couple of months of saving and deleting 7-8GB HD TV show files I decided I wanted to set it up with Boot Camp. I had about 100GB of free space on the drive but Boot Camp claimed there wasn't enough space for a 30GB BC partition.

Figuring that they wanted contiguous space for the partition I used Tech Tool Pro to defrag the drive. After that I was able to proceed with the BC partition.

But, as I said, that is the only time in 8 years I have defragged.

Further to the closing suggestion in your post. When I got my first Mac in 2001 I also had a new PC for work compatibility. After a while, being used to maintenance on the PC, I would sit down in front of the Mac and find myself feeling like there was something I was supposed to be doing to it and then realizing there was nothing that needed to be done. That was one of the eye-openers that sold me on the Mac.

I would argue that you CHOSE to defragment the drive, even though there was a more effective and safer way to solve the problem. That way would be to clone to an external drive, partition the drive, and clone back. Defragmentation is automatic, and there is no chance of data loss.

If I had a 300+GB external perhaps I would have done it that way but I don't.

Many times I notice Mac OS X offers more than one way to skin your cat - wouldn't zeroing out the free space done the same thing?

I don't think so. All it does it overwrite disk blocks with no files currently stored on them. Think of it as Secure Empty Trash, after the trash has already been emptied.

As usual Rick beat me to the punch with an example of when I needed to defrag a drive. Once I switched to OS X I have rarely defragged a drive. At first it was because about once a year I would change the partition sizes.

As drives have gotten larger I've had less trouble with running out of space on a partition. Consequently I haven't needed to resize/defrag the drive. That is until I set up Boot Camp.

I've owned TechTools since OS 8-something-or-other. I don't know why, maybe it just makes me feel more secure. Full defrag with TT takes a goodly time, but it can be done. Defrag Files Only is pretty fast. You can use a SuperDuper! backup to defrag files only by (a) backing up incrementally to your external and then (b) doing an erase-and-write back to your HD.

I find OSX to be very good. A slow Mac usually just needs a cache enema, a repair permissions, and a PRAM zap to speed it up. YMMV.

On weekdays I usually shutdown my iMac when I go to work and power up when I get home, since thunder storms and blackouts are the norm nine months out of the year here and the UPS alarm freaks out the wife and the maid. On weekends, however, I let it run from Friday evening till Monday morn to let it do its maintenance thing in the wee hours. I note that on Monday evening's boot up it's noticeably snappier. Then every second month or so I'll run OnyX's maintenance scripts in case that routine missed a monthly, or weekly script.

And your car runs better after you wash it!

I respectfully submit what you notice is in your head.

Amazing how long it takes old habits or legends to die...

BTW, you're certainly not alone in still worrying about the scripts but it is one less thing to think about while enjoying your Mac

Since Tiger the maintenance scripts are handled by the OS without you having to run them manually. And, even if you don't run them you will probably not notice a difference in the running of your Mac.

If you want to assure yourself that they are being run at a decent interval (remember they were originally designed for a server running 24/7) then you can check them in your console log or, better yet, use the widget done by our own GiantMike as a result of us discussing this a couple of years ago.

http://www.giantmike.com/widgets/Maintidget.html

Don't bother leaving your Mac on over the weekends and risking the bad power hits unless you want to for other reasons.

FWIW, I haven't manually run the scripts in a couple of years and here's the current status as displayed by Mike's widget.

How did you know about my car's performance?!!

As for old habits and legends, I'm only a toddler of 3 years on Mac OS X, so I'm not very familiar with Mac legends. If you're talking about PCs & the Windows maintenance habits, I admit, I still no doubt have some of those hangin' on.

I don't doubt what you're saying and the scripts are more than likely being done with or without any assistance from me. I was just assuming - and we all know what happens when people assume things; we make an ass out of u and me - but I've been there before so let's go with it anyway. Assuming that Mac OS X does its maintenance chores when the computer is idle (usually 3 AM in the morning from what I've read), how is it to going to have time to perform those tasks if the computer is shutdown after use and there is little or no idle time? Does it perform them piece by piece coming back to it as it finds time till eventually they get done? That is a neat trick.

The point I'm trying to make is that the computer needs to have some balance between shutting down after each use (as a safety precaution in my case) and letting it run 24/7. It needs a certain amount of idle time to perform those maintenance tasks.

Edit: correction of spelling, & add info