Maintaining Your Mac
For tips on maintaining your cables, keyboards, mice, and accessories, click here.

Screen

Caring for a screen is relatively easy. Avoid touching it with anything, and when you do, refrain from applying pressure. When cleaning, use a soft microfiber cloth with a drop or two of water, or our favorite screen cleaner, WHOOSH!, to prevent scratches. Do NOT use any harsh chemicals on your screen, as this can cause the antireflective coating to peel.

Outer Case

Since most Macs are made from aluminum, cleaning the outer case can be done with a slightly wet paper towel or microfiber cloth. For adhesive left from a sticker, use a metal safe adhesive remover like Goo Gone, and then follow it promptly with a slightly moistened cloth. Then, be sure to dry. Be careful not to get any moisture or chemicals in any of the holes, ports, or vents! Do NOT use any Goo Gone or other harsh chemicals on the screen.

Internals

It's essential to keep the inside of your computer clean. Over time, internal components become covered in dust, lint, hair, and other particles in the air. When components are covered with debris, air can’t circulate around them properly causing them to run hotter, and in certain cases, slower. Since opening your computer yourself will void its warranty, we recommend you bring in your computer to be cleaned every two years, or more frequently if you have pets, use it regularly outside, in dusty areas, or if you smoke.

Battery

Batteries are easy to care for, as outlined in this more detailed Apple-written article. Basically, don't be afraid to use your battery and don’t leave your computer plugged in continuously (more than a week) without using the battery. However, leaving it plugged in overnight, for example, is just fine. If your battery seems to be lasting much shorter than usual, you can check the battery’s health percentage, or what percent of the original capacity the battery can still hold, with one of our favorite tools, coconutBattery. If your battery health is less than 75%, we recommend replacing it, which is a service we provide for most computers.

Checking Drive Health

Because nobody wants to turn on their computer and discover their drive, with all of their files, has died, we advise our customers to check their drive’s health every few months. With this tool, DriveDX, you can see the health of your internal hard drive or solid state drive, and be notified of a failing drive.