Recovery Mode is an essential part of macOS utilities and lets you get out of precarious situations when your Mac is seriously stuck or some process is invading your system so much that regular Mac restarting doesn’t seem to help. What’s Mac Recovery Mode?Ĭhances are you might’ve never even used your Recovery Mode Mac feature before. To do that, you need to launch the Mac Recovery Mode. So there might be a time when you think that your Mac is not the same as it used to be and you probably want to queue a Mac reinstall OS process to start anew. However, occasionally, Macs do allow clashing processes to result in bugs, accumulate too much cache files from resource-intensive apps, and even let in a rare piece of malware if you’ve given it your admin access credentials (please don’t do it). And while it may take a little research and some care before using, it’s worth trying out and perhaps adding to your selection of tools the next time you’re fixing a Mac.Macs are generally known for being very dependable machines that produce little bugs, have a secure sandboxed space to fight off any intrusions (especially so since macOS 10.15 Catalina), and usually present minimum problems for the whole duration of their ownership.

There’s a reason Onyx has been among the tools of choice for Mac techies for almost two decades now, the final program you ran on a client’s computer to clean things up before you wrapped things up. It’s to Joël Barrière’s credit that the program is able to dive into system components as well as it does, and Barrière’s does his homework and listens to user feedback to create an excellent freeware program while only asking for donations in return if the customer is satisfied with the product.

There are some handy FAQ links on the Titanium Software website as to common issues Onyx works to address. Onyx has never tried to be a jack of all trades like some of the other Mac utilities, nor does it go out of its way to welcome the user with a tutorial video. The Restore Defaults option under the Maintenance tab also comes in handy and provides an easy escape if you’ve changed a system setting and things appear to have gotten out of hand. Onyx is the kind of program you research before using and given its potential reach into your operating system’s components, it behooves you to read up on it or look into some YouTube tutorial videos to get familiar with how to operate Onyx, which items to repair via clicking checkboxes in the menus, which items to avoid, and how to safely use the program. The customizable Maintenance tasks screen in Onyx.

What is os x utilities