When you turn on your Mac each day, you may see recovered files in the trash. These recovered files are temporary files that applications use each time the application is running, and are discarded once the application shuts down. Recovered files can be discarded without causing harm to your computer, but you may want to repair permissions on your Mac and upgrade your applications. You can also leave your Mac on at night so that the UNIX maintenance scripts are run.
Repair Permissions
- Applications use permissions files that help them perform functions. When you install new software or files on your Mac, permissions conflicts can occur, causing you to experience poor performance with your applications. You can repair the permissions by opening the Disk Utility application in your Utilities folder and selecting "Repair Permissions." Repairing permissions may help cut down on the amount of recovered files you see in your trash each time you start your Mac.
Upgrade Applications
- Another way to help ensure that you don't have excessive recovered files in the trash each time you start your Mac is to upgrade all of your applications to the most recent versions. If you are using applications that are not entirely compatible with the Mac OS you are running, you may encounter conflicts that would cause extra temporary files to be created. You can select the upgrade for each individual application through the application's interface.
Leave Mac on at Night
- To ensure that your Mac is operating properly, the Apple OS runs maintenance scripts in the early morning hours each day. If you shut down your Mac each night, these maintenance scripts will not run. To ensure that the scripts run, try either leaving your Mac on each night or using a utility program, such as Onyx, to run the scripts. If you leave your Mac on each night, you won't see recovered files in the trash.
Check With Application Makers
- When you open the recovered files you see in the trash, you may see files that look important. To learn more about these files, contact the manufacturer of the application you were running before you shut down your Mac. Verify that these files aren't being created by problems with the application. Usually you can tell which applications created the recovered files by looking at the name of the files.
