How often do you restart your MacBook?

Once per week (or thereabouts) with all of my devices (Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, etc.. It's just a good habit. However if something starts acting goofy or buggy, I'll restart it right then. I got in the habit 20ish years ago when the Lead Technician in our company started demanding that we do that first thing every Monday morning. Saved him quite a few "Why is my computer doing this?" calls.

IdrisSeabright wrote:

Restarting is certainly my first troubleshooting step. But I think I'll challenge the idea that it's necessary to do every week or day. No one has ever really been able to provide evidence that it's necessary. But, obviously it doesn't hurt!

Did you ever have a Windows PC 😏.

Restarting a Mac does a few useful things, including clearing caches, restarting all apps from a cold state, and defragmenting apps (not storage; defragging a Mac’s storage is never necessary because it has a sensible file system). It’s generally not necessary unless performance degrades. My wife’s iMac gets sluggish after a month or two without a restart. I restart my MBP M1 every week or two, mostly for AppleSeed updates.

But there is the secret known to the ancients, and passed down in secret conclaves through the ages: When in doubt, reboot.

IdrisSeabright wrote:

And there's nothing wrong with the habit. But I'm looking for actual evidence that it's necessary rather than just someone's preferred workflow. It sounds like, in your particular example, it makes sense. But as I'm the only person running my Mac and the only changes that require rebooting are when I update the OS, and my Mac runs just fine, I don't restart it at other times.

I look at Activity Monitor, Memory page. As long as Memory Pressure is green I’m happy. If it turns yellow (meaning the virtual memory manager is thrashing) I first kill and restart any apps using a lot of memory, and if that doesn’t turn it green I’ll restart. What’s interesting is with the latest Sequoia 15.2 it has remained green for longer periods of time, so I suspect improved virtual memory management.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

I look at Activity Monitor, Memory page. As long as Memory Pressure is green I’m happy. If it turns yellow (meaning the virtual memory manager is thrashing) I first kill and restart any apps using a lot of memory, and if that doesn’t turn it green I’ll restart. What’s interesting is with the latest Sequoia 15.2 it has remained green for longer periods of time, so I suspect improved virtual memory management.

That's pretty much what I do as well. Since switching from the MBA with 8 GBs (yes, I know it was a misguided purchase!), I occasionally go into the yellow but quitting apps seems to solve the issue most times these day..

There's no need to restart daily unless needed. Restarting a MacBook once every few days or when it feels sluggish is a good practice. If you're working on intensive tasks, you might restart it more frequently to maintain performance.

johnmoon wrote:

I am wondering how often you restart your machines. I usually do not restart until it is needed - system update or malfunction. Because of the many bugs in MacOS though, I need to restart every few days to get all the features work again.

It's more a matter of personal preference than anything else. When MacBooks had hard drives that spun, shutting down the computer before moving it around a lot was considered a good thing. The SSDs aren't as vulnerable to that sort of thing.

I'm not sure what bugs you're referring to. I'm running the latest version of Sequoia and only restart when I do an update. Noting ever stops working. If you have to restart every couple of days to keep things working, there is something else wrong with your computer. You might want to start another thread describing your issues. People may be able to help you resolve them.

If you still want to restart your computer every few days anyway, there's nothing wrong with that.

Every day seems like a lot, and our IT guy suggested just once per week - Monday morning. He would also do weekend updates on certain things in the server room. Guess it was easier for him to tell everyone to reboot on Monday (just in case what he did required us to reboot) instead of him going around to what was probably 100ish computers and doing it himself. Anyway, he told me once it was good practice to do a once per week reboot on my personal computer and phone as well. The habit stuck.

Same here. I normally wouldn't restart it at all except for updates but I have to almost every week because of bugs in apps. Music and Airplay are the main ones for me.

Lawrence Finch wrote:

But there is the secret known to the ancients, and passed down in secret conclaves through the ages: When in doubt, reboot.

I consider that the basic computer troubleshooting step!

I remain unconvinced, for a modern Mac, that prophylactic restarting is necessary. There's lots of anecdotal information both ways but nothing seems definitive.

gsyrba wrote:

According to our technician, it simply refreshes the system... clears out temp files, frees up RAM, often fixes minor glitches. I'm sure there was more, but those are the main things that come to mind. He used to say it was more important with PCs since they seem a bit more buggy in general, but also had those of us with Macs do the same. He had a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and IT, which is a lot more than I have, so who was I to challenge him?

Restarting is certainly my first troubleshooting step. But I think I'll challenge the idea that it's necessary to do every week or day. No one has ever really been able to provide evidence that it's necessary. But, obviously it doesn't hurt!

Thanks!

I shut down my computer whenever I will be away from it for about an hour or more. I've never had any problem doing so. I also shut off my lights when leaving a room, my TV when not watching it, my car when not driving, etc.

Why consume power when not in use?

So to answer the question as to how often do I restart my Mac, many times a day.

According to our technician, it simply refreshes the system... clears out temp files, frees up RAM, often fixes minor glitches. I'm sure there was more, but those are the main things that come to mind. He used to say it was more important with PCs since they seem a bit more buggy in general, but also had those of us with Macs do the same. He had a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and IT, which is a lot more than I have, so who was I to challenge him?

dialabrain wrote:

BobTheFisherman wrote:

What is the benefit of not shutting it down when not in use?

I can tell you the benefit for me. I'm on and off my main Mac basically 24/7. I'd be booting it a many times a day if I shut it down every time I took a break for an hour or two, or when I get 3 to 4 hrs sleep at a time. Saves me time.

I must have too much time on my hands. A few seconds saved by not booting up does not impact me as much as others. I'd rather save power, ensure cache is cleared, prevent unintentional wake up, etc. than worry about the seconds it takes to boot. But as IdrisSeabright and others state, it is personal preference and no damage is done either way.

gsyrba wrote:

Every day seems like a lot, and our IT guy suggested just once per week - Monday morning. He would also do weekend updates on certain things in the server room. Guess it was easier for him to tell everyone to reboot on Monday (just in case what he did required us to reboot) instead of him going around to what was probably 100ish computers and doing it himself. Anyway, he told me once it was good practice to do a once per week reboot on my personal computer and phone as well. The habit stuck.

And there's nothing wrong with the habit. But I'm looking for actual evidence that it's necessary rather than just someone's preferred workflow. It sounds like, in your particular example, it makes sense. But as I'm the only person running my Mac and the only changes that require rebooting are when I update the OS, and my Mac runs just fine, I don't restart it at other times.

Thanks!

IdrisSeabright wrote:

gsyrba wrote:

Every day seems like a lot, and our IT guy suggested just once per week - Monday morning. He would also do weekend updates on certain things in the server room. Guess it was easier for him to tell everyone to reboot on Monday (just in case what he did required us to reboot) instead of him going around to what was probably 100ish computers and doing it himself. Anyway, he told me once it was good practice to do a once per week reboot on my personal computer and phone as well. The habit stuck.

And there's nothing wrong with the habit. But I'm looking for actual evidence that it's necessary rather than just someone's preferred workflow. It sounds like, in your particular example, it makes sense. But as I'm the only person running my Mac and the only changes that require rebooting are when I update the OS, and my Mac runs just fine, I don't restart it at other times.

Thanks!

What is the benefit of not shutting it down when not in use?