How to Defrag a Macintosh

As more and more files are added and removed from your Macintosh's hard drive, the drive can become fragmented. Fragmentation occurs when information on the hard drive is stored in non continuous sectors. After awhile, this can slow down program access times and impede performance.

Instructions

1. Log in to your Mac using an administrator account. To defrag your hard drive, you must be logged in as the administrator.

2. Open the "Terminal." You can access it by going to the Applications folder and scrolling down through the alphabetized listing of the applications contained on your Mac.

3. At the Terminal command prompt, type the following command (without the quotes): "sudo periodic daily weekly monthly"; next, press "Enter." Afterward, Terminal will ask you to authenticate the command by entering the administrator's password. Enter the password and again, press "Enter." Your Mac will begin defragmenting the hard drive and performing other hard drive maintenance actions. Depending on the size of your hard drive, this may take some time.

4. Close Terminal when the defragmentation is complete and log out of the administrator account.

Tips & Warnings

• To keep your Mac performing at its best, run the hard drive maintenance scripts once each month.