Free Defragmentation Software For Mac

Download Smart Defrag 7 Free, Deeply Defrag Windows for Better Performance. Turn on iTop VPN to safeguard online privacy, remove ads, and protect DNS with military encryptions. Jump on the couch, open iTop VPN, and watch unlimited streaming contents on Netflix, HBO, Disney+, etc. Download iTop VPN to bypass geo-restrictions, speed up in. Answer (1 of 4): Defragmenting is basically pointless on OS X. The OS automatically avoids fragmenting files on write.


You might be experiencing some performance issues with your Mac, and you knew from your PC days about defragging computers. Well, you won’t find any command or utility to do that on Mac. The point is that the Mac File System is designed differently than Microsoft's, and it defragments files automatically. However, there are still some situations when you may need to defrag Macbook once in a few years.

In this article, we’ll tell you how to defrag a Mac, all advantages and pitfalls of doing this, and what alternatives to defragging are out there. Anxious to find out? Then let’s start!

Do you need to defragment a Mac?

First of all, let’s find out why we do a Mac disk defrag. To cut a long story short, defragmentation aims to boost a computer’s performance by reorganizing the data on your drive. As a result, the related bits are grouped, and loading files and programs take less time. Simply put, Mac defragment moves everything back in order and can greatly speed up a slow system.

However, despite the obvious advantage, a Mac running any OS X version later than 10.2 generally doesn’t need to be defragmented. This is because OS X and macOS have their own built-in Apple Mac utilities that clean up fragmented files from the hard drive. Therefore, for most users, it eliminates the need to perform a regular defrag. But there is an exception to every rule, and in a few rare cases, a defrag for Mac can make a difference.

  • Speed up your PC with quick & easy defragmentation. Defrag entire hard drives or individual files. Works with HDD and SSD and supports NTFS and FAT32 file systems! Download Free Version Get Defraggler.
  • One of the fastest defraggers in the world, Disk Defrag often takes less than 10 minutes to defragment an average-size hard drive.

IDefrag is advanced Mac OS X disk defragmentation and optimization tool. Supports the very latest features of HFS+, including journaling, case sensitive filenames and adaptive hot file clustering (which means it won't mess-up the Hot Zone).

When do Macs need to be defragged?

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Free Defrag Software For Mac

If your hard drive is more than 90 percent full, the macOS may have problems with automatic defragmentation routines. This situation is common for multimedia creators who produce plenty of large files in pro tools like Adobe Premiere, Final Cut, or Photoshop.

Therefore, if you have hundreds or even thousands of large (1GB and larger) movies, audio files, or creative documents, you should consider removing them to free up the storage. Another alternative is defragging a Mac.

Concerning the first option, there is a fast and safe way to remove unnecessary files from your Mac — a powerful app CleanMyMac X. It finds above 74 GB of junk on an average computer, including old and large files, app leftovers, and system clutter. It helps to boost computer performance, so you probably won’t even need to defrag a Mac.

However, if you still wonder, “How do I defrag my Mac?” read on. We’ve prepared all the essential guidelines for you.

How to defragment a Mac

One of the simplest and most user-friendly Mac defrag methods is to use a trusted third-party defragmentation program. But before choosing and installing the app, make sure to back up your data. Should something go wrong, you’ll be able to restore all necessary files easily. You can use Time Machine, iCloud, Dropbox, or any other external storage at hand for this purpose.

When choosing the defragmentation app, pay special attention to the compatibility requirements. Macs running operating systems older than OS X 10.2 are not compatible with the latest modern defragmentation software, so finding a relevant tool is challenging.

Once you’ve installed the program of your choice, open the utility and follow the instructions of a disk defragmenter for Mac. Give the process plenty of time to complete without moving your computer anywhere until the defragmentation is finished. Usually, you’ll need to restart your Mac as well.

Will defragmentation harm my HDD?

You may not worry: OS X defrag will not harm your HDD. As you already know, disk defragmentation can greatly speed up the traditional hard drive. It’s because HDD fragments all the data and stores it in multiple locations. And it may take quite a time to read the file with its pieces situated in different places. The procedure for arranging the data is not harmful to your HDD and aims to boost the computer’s performance. And while it is not advisable to turn to such extreme measures, defragmenting a hard drive disk is a safe procedure if, of course, performed accurately.

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Why you should never defrag Mac’s SSD

The process described above is applied only to the hard drives. If you have a newer Mac with SSD (solid-state drive), you should never defrag its data. SSDs operate in a different way to a traditional HDD and already have a built-in automatic maintenance process. Therefore, it is not necessary to defrag a solid-state drive to boost Mac’s performance.

Furthermore, all defragmentation attempts can even hurt your SSD. Flash memory used by a solid-state drive has a finite lifespan because of the limited write and read cycles. And disk defragmentation is a process of reading the data from one place and writing it to another. So if you defrag SSD, you will perform thousands of write operations each time on the drive. It can speed up the degradation of a solid-state drive and lead to its wear and tear. And that’s not what you need.

What are alternatives to defragment a Mac?

If your Mac is running slowly, you don’t necessarily need to defrag Mac hard drive. Sometimes it’s not your HDD that’s having problems. Therefore, try some alternative methods that may help you speed up the system without disk defrag on Mac.

Repairing Disk Permissions

“Try repairing your disk permissions” is a standard Mac troubleshooting tip. Permissions are file settings that affect the ability to read, write, and execute the file. And if they are no longer set correctly, software that uses the file may not work right.

Microsoft office 2019 for mac download crack. In OS X Yosemite or earlier, the file permissions on a startup disk can be repaired with the help of Disk Utility. Note that beginning from OS X EI Capitan, disk permissions are automatically protected, and there is no need to verify them with Disk Utility.

How do I repair my Mac startup disk?

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Here are the steps for optimizing your Mac:

  1. Open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities).

  2. Choose your startup disk.

  3. Click the First Aid tab.

  4. Click Verify Disk Permissions to check permissions.

  5. Click Repair Disk Permissions to repair any inconsistent permissions.

If you don’t want to repair disk permissions manually, you can easily perform the action with the utility we mentioned above — CleanMyMac X. It has the Maintenance module that will help you optimize your Mac, including verifying startup disk and repairing disk permissions. Thus, you’ll ensure that your Mac’s operating system is functioning properly. You can download CleanMyMac here.

Therefore, before defragging your Mac, try to perform the Mac disk cleanup to increase the disk speed. It’s an easy and risk-free process that will not take more than a few minutes.

General speedup tips

Sometimes your Mac needs a good kick-start to run smoothly. Here are some tricks to speed up your computer.

How do I improve my Mac performance?

1. Update macOS software

Try to update your software to the latest versions as it performs better than the previous ones. Usually, system updates include performance and bug fixes that could be the reason for slowdowns.

2. Delete unnecessary files

Ensure that your Mac has at least 10 percent of total drive storage available at any time to perform background actions and provide enough space for temporary files, caches, and virtual memory. Once again, CleanMyMac X is a great solution for finding and removing useless and large files that take gigabytes of space on your Mac.

3. Stop programs from launching automatically

A large number of apps may launch simultaneously when you turn your Mac on. Http://steamidfinder.com. Some of them run in the background and are only visible in a menu bar, so it’s even hard to define if they’re actually running. You can stop them from loading by opening System Preferences, clicking on Users & Groups, and choosing Login Items. You’ll see a list of applications that launch during the startup. You can switch off the ones you don’t need by clicking the minus sign (-) button.

If you’re looking for some utilities that can help with all of that and even more, try Mac maintenance software like CleanMyMac X, It will optimize Mac performance safely and quickly.

We hope this article was helpful, and you found the answers to all your questions here. Thanks for reading and share this article if you liked it!

Supports Tiger filesystems
Send email notifications or make noises when done.
Supports HFS and HFS+ (Mac OS Extended).
Supports case sensitive and journaled filesystems.
Supports adaptive hot file clustering (“Hot Zone”).
Four powerful defragmentation algorithms:
  • Compact data, moving all free space to one place.
  • Optimize filesystem metadata.
  • On-line defragmentation.
    Defragment whilst your disk is mounted.
  • Advanced programmable optimization.
    Rearrange your disk the way you want.
    B-Tree metadata file compaction/optimization support.
    Thermal monitoring to make sure your disk doesn’t overheat.
    High performance user-defined file classification engine.
    Per-block and accurate whole disk display.
    Detailed statistics so you know whether you need to optimize.
    Inspector allows you to view details of individual extents/files.
    Quickly jump to specific files to examine them in more detail.
    Altivec accelerated display for improved performance.
    Auto-update feature ensures you always have the latest version.
    AppleScript support.

  • How long does it take your computer to solve different tasks? Sooner or later, every PC user wonders what they have to do to speed up the routine processes and improve its overall performance. When you ask a professional what moves can you make, there’s every likelihood that he will name the disk defragmentation.

    What Is Disk Defragmentation After All?

    Let’s stop here for a moment and explain what defragmentation is. Not every Mac user is aware of this process, which reminds of the apartment cleaning when people fit things into their places and get rid of junk along the way. The thing is, while being written to the disk, a file usually gets fragmented – divided into pieces to fit in the available free space. Later on, the data may be modified many times and/or moved from one folder to another.

    Over time, almost each computer suffers from the increasing fragmentation, which makes the system spend more time looking for separate pieces of the file in various areas of the disk. That’s why the need to rearrange data and clean some space appears. The core idea of defragmentation is that the pieces of information scattered on your hard drive are brought back together. Done right, it may help to fix many issues on your favorite computer.

    Luckily, the users don’t have to defragment their drives manually any longer.

    What Is Defragging Regarding Apple Computers?

    OK, now you have the basic idea of what defragging means and why it needs to be done from time to time. In a nutshell, if you ask yourself “Why does my hard drive take longer to read certain files?”, think about defragmentation. It will put the block back in sequential order. The drive head will stop running around the whole platter to read just one file.

    Some people believe there is no need to defrag HDD on Mac. Also, they often add that you can’t use this procedure on SSD (solid-state drive) because it may be harmful to it. Although these assertions are partly correct, it is still important to discuss what defragging is regarding Mac before making conclusions.

    Unlike Microsoft, Apple uses another file system on their computers called HFS+. It provides a special function called Hot File Adaptive Clustering (a.k.a. HFC). The main purpose of this component is to prevent fragmentation of disk storage automatically. Defragmentation may be necessary in case a relatively old drive is installed in the machine. If the hard disk is occupied for a long time by the large multimedia files (more than 1GB), defragmentation is a solution. Such data is highly susceptible to fragmentation. Thus, it can be difficult to automatically avoid it.

    On the other hand, not so many users still have old drives. That’s why you can’t find defragmentation tools among Apple’s onboard utilities. In case you believe optimization is necessary, mind some smart solutions from third-party companies (e.g., iDefrag). The good thing is you should not run the process manually: it happens automatically on OS X. Once your Mac’s ‘house’ is full, let the smart defragging app solve the issue.

    Does Defragmentation Make Sense on Macs?

    While most experts would call Mac’s defragmentation an optional activity, let’s talk about the exceptions. The application of this procedure may bring several benefits. Are you a multimedia developer with tons of large files? Then you will almost inevitably face file fragmentation issues, which will make you wonder how to manage thousands of 1GB video/audio items. Remember, that such applications as Adobe Premier and Photoshop tend to produce files of enormous size.

    If you do have old, overloaded HDD (where, say, hundreds of 10GB files are stored), try defragmentation. A good third-party tool that really works for this purpose is iDefrag, which costs around $32. Please, note that before running defragmentation, it is highly advisable to back up the drive to keep your data safe.

    Remember that defragmentation has nothing to do with compression or destruction of files. The physical storage blocks will be reorganized. The specific algorithms depend on the selected defragging app, so you might want to learn more details before choosing the application. The positive outcomes of defragmentation include:

    • Shorter response time of data saved on your computer
    • Faster performance of all apps
    • Enhanced hard drive’s efficiency.

    What about the negative consequences? As far as we are acknowledged, OS X defrag has no negative outcomes for your HDD.

    How to Defrag HDD Step-by-Step

    Let’s say you decided to use a specialized third-party tool to defrag your Mac. Back up your data not to lose it – it is critical to be able to restore necessary files in case something goes wrong. To rest assured, apart from Apple’s built-in Time Machine, turn to good old storages like Dropbox to protect your data from the potential threat. Then, select the most suitable utility and download it. Make sure the chosen software is compatible with your version of OS. Follow these instructions to defrag your hard drive on Mac safely.

    • Thin out user files on the boot drive. Start with the largest files like videos. Mind that a full boot drive (more than 80% filled) won’t let your computer function at its best. Thus, you will have to sacrifice some files or store them elsewhere.

    In case you count on the best performance, decrease the files’ size so that the boot drive is less than 50% filled.

    • Choose a blank powered external drive. A Carbon Copy Cloner will help to clone the OS X boot partition (Mac hard disk) to the external drive.

    • Reboot your device. Boot from the clone with the help of Startup Manager. If you happen to have some doubts, examine the clone for a while.

    Make sure it is reliable and try to notice any undefined problems at this stage.

    Free Defragmentation Software For MacHow to defrag my mac for free

    • Go to Disk Utility -> Security. Use “Zero” option to erase the internal Mac HD or the entire drive. Get rid of the bad sectors during the process.

    Never move the machine during this procedure!

    • Reverse clone once you’re finished. Launch Disk Utility and choose Repair Permissions on OnyX maintenance and cleaning aspects. Reboot the computer.

    This process helps to cope with several issues:

    • Corrupt caches
    • Optimization problems
    • Defragmentation problems
    • Obstacles created by bad sectors
    • Overall safety

    Users create clones to allow them solving the same problem later when news apps fill the space. The lack of RAM, as well as some other problems, can be the only obstacles on the way to proper fragmentation.

    Should You Defrag SSD on Mac?

    Everything said above concerns all Apple computers equipped with the hard disks with moving parts. The thing is, the majority of modern Macs has SSDs. Their structure and recommended care vary. Many people wonder what happens to SSDs after the attempt to defrag them. Any tech person would say that traditional defragmentation for SSD is not acceptable. SSD defragmentation can lead to the active block overwriting. Plus, it will reduce the disk’s lifespan as it has the limited number of write/overwrite cycles. In the worst-case scenario, performing such procedures on Mac may simply disable SSDs. On the whole, the work of SSDs reminds of the way RAM modules function. The speed of reading/writing from different blocks has nothing to do with the file location.Also, keep in mind that third-party defragmentation apps are not supported by Apple. These instruments should never be launched on SSD flash storage drives. Thus, we can conclude that you do not need to defrag SSD as it makes no sense.

    Will Defragmenting Speed up Computer and What Are Some Other Alternatives?

    Are you tired of your Mac being as slow as a snail? Several methods exist to improve your device’s performance. A defragmentation may be a great option for older Macs, but as we’ve clarified, it does not always help or is actually needed to optimize the new device. Here’s the short list of other steps you can take to speed up your struggling Mac:

    • Shut down running applications to have more free space. Keep in mind that the majority of slowdowns happens because of the RAM constraints. Another reason may be the more intense use of virtual memory.
    • Update software on a regular basis.
    • Clean your Mac from garbage files (temporary, duplicates, caches, etc.).
    • Limit the number of apps that launch on startup without your permission.
    • Reboot your Mac every time you want to free up memory and setup system updates.
    • Remember that the latest OS X versions allow performing better as well as fixing bugs.
    • Check whether there is a minimum of 10-20% of free space on the hard drive at all times.
    • Apply “Verify Disk” function to detect a failing drive.

    Free Mac Defrag Utility

    This way, you can speed up your Mac as well as eliminate several other gaps.

    Free Defragmentation Software For Mac

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