How often should I reboot my mac mini?

For at least a decade now you don't EVER have to reboot your Mac unless there's a problem. Mac hardware and macOS have become extremely stable. I myself go months without rebooting.

But it's up to you. Rebooting doesn't hurt anything. If you want to reboot your Mac ten times a day it doesn't make any difference and doesn't improve things.

Whatever floats your boat.

You do not have to reboot ever (unless the system tells you so when updating etc).

...but many people seem to forget that it should be the one of the first routine troubleshooting steps if there is a problem. In these forums it is embarrassing to even ask a trivial question if the user has rebooted the Mac in such situation.

Generally the only time I ever reboot is for system updates. Occasionally an app install or update will require a reboot (not that common these days).

It's a matter of personal preference.

I sleep my Mac mini's (both Intel and Silicone) for weeks at a time. Sometime I even go for months until a restart is forced by a macOS update.

I have been shutting down my Macs before bed and power them on in the morning when I get up — for years. No Mac failures to date. If I am going to be away for the better part of a day or longer, then I also shutdown the Macs for that timeframe. And, if there is a strong thunderstorm threat, I will also power the equipment off.

It all distills to a personal preference about whether to do the first paragraph, or leave the Mac running for months, but it might be useful to clear out System and application caches on a more frequent cycle. Mine is daily.

lance528 wrote:

I have ben rebooting both my Mac systems, a 2009 iMac and a 2016 MacBook Pro nightly. I am upgrading to a Mac Mini. How often should I reboot my systems?

Or, to phrase it another way, it doesn't matter.

How often should I reboot my systems?

The literal answer is never.

I'm currently using Sonoma 14.1. When I check the storage on my Mac Mini (M1 chip), two items keep spinning: Photos and System Data. I'm assuming this is causing gradual loss of memory availability to the point of unavailability after 1 to 2 days (my Mac Mini has a 256GB hard drive); hence, the need to reboot after this period. I understand iPhones (I don't have one) have a similar problem with System Data creep.

WantMMHelp wrote:

I'm currently using Sonoma 14.1. When I check the storage on my Mac Mini (M1 chip), two items keep spinning: Photos and System Data. I'm assuming this is causing gradual loss of memory availability to the point of unavailability after 1 to 2 days (my Mac Mini has a 256GB hard drive); hence, the need to reboot after this period. I understand iPhones (I don't have one) have a similar problem with System Data creep.

I would suggest you start your own thread. You're more likely to get the help you need that way.

+1. My mac seems to run a tad better when clearing out old stuff during a reboot.