Most of us simply save files and folders, download movies or files, and tuck it all away in our ‘Documents’ folder without ever thinking about those files or how our system is organized ever again. Even if its system is organized properly, the more files your Mac has to poke through to find what it’s looking for, the slower it will be! It can be onerous to defrag Mac hard drive, even when it’s not packed. Oddly, this is also when defragmentation is most difficult, as the system needs a bit of space to temporarily store files it’s moving around.Ī Packed file storage is likely the more pressing issue for your Mac. When Macs need to be defraggedĪre there cases when Macs still require defragmentation? Defragmentation is most useful when your Mac’s storage is near capacity. Just like Macs, newer PCs running Windows 10 and later don’t require defragmentation. This is because of the fact that macOS has its own built-in Apple Mac utilities that can clean up the fragmented files from the hard drive. Macs running macOS 10.2 and newer generally don’t need defragmentation. Try free Why some PCs need to be defragged but not Mac? You may want to defrag Mac devices, but unless it’s running an older version of OS X, the system should take care of disk fragmentation on its own. Do I need to defrag my Mac?ĭisk defragmentation is likely not necessary for modern Macs. Defragmenting gave the computer time and license to find associated files and reorganize the file system to keep them together. This meant computers found files slowly, and the entire system would, in turn, run slowly. Rather than keeping associated files together, the computer may have them scattered throughout the file system. But over time, deleting a file here or there meant random areas of space where computers could store those files. If you had a program that needed access to ten different files, the logical step would be to store them right next to each other so the computer could find them quickly. When a computer stores files, it places them wherever it has room on its drive.

What is disk defragmentationīack in the day of tall PC towers and hard drives, you could hear spinning inside those boxes, disk defragmentation was a critical component of keeping a computer operational and healthy.

We’ll walk you through how to defrag a Mac, let you know if you even can defrag a Mac, and discuss disc defragmenter Mac computers may find useful, as well as some alternatives that are likely more suitable to your needs. Still, there are times you should intervene.

Modern systems do a much better job of defragmenting file storage and memory on their own without your interference. Disk defragmentation can help a computer operate smoothly, that’s certain, but should we still be doing this?ĭefragmentation is a relic of older computing paradigms, and memory management. Make your Mac fast and secure with CleanMyMac X.Ī common perception is that any slow-running computer should be defragmented.

How to defrag a mac book pro