There are quite a few tweaks you can make to customize macOS in System Preferences. But if you want to go deeper, you can customize macOS with Onyx, a system maintenance and customization utility for the Mac.
Downloading and Installing Onyx
OnyX is a multifunction utility for macOS that you can use to verify the startup disk and the structure of its system files, to run tasks of cleaning and computer maintenance, to configure some hidden parameters of many Apple applications, and more. OnyX is one of the best free utilities for maintenance, personalization and optimization of your MacOS.Not only that it is capable to run countless miscellaneous tasks of system maintenance, but it enables you to easily find and tweak many hidden parameters of Dock, Dashboard, Safari, Expose, Disk Utility and Finder. This website provides operating system utilities for macOS. OnyX- Maintenance- Deeper- CalHash- Access Menu- They are free, fully usable, and no registration is necessary. You may download, copy, and distribute them at no charge; however, you may not modify the software for distribution. Onyx Mac maintenance might not be as vital to the day-to-day operation of your Mac as it once was, but slow-downs still happen. And when they do, Onyx will clear them up. A general-purpose utility. OnyX 3.6.7 for macOS Mojave 10.14 OnyX is a multifunction utility that you can use to verify the startup disk and the structure of its system files, to run miscellaneous maintenance and cleaning tasks, to configure parameters in the Finder, Dock, Safari, and some of Apple's applications, to delete caches, to remove certain problematic folders.
1. Download Onyx from the developer’s website. There’s a specific version of Onyx for each major release of macOS, so make sure you download the right one. The current version for macOS Sierra is 3.2.3.
2. Install Onyx from the downloaded disk image.
Starting Onyx
Macos which app used for teaching to work. 1. Open Onyx from the Applications folder.
2. Enter your administrator username and password. In order for Onyx to fiddle with deep system functions, it needs admin access to run. It won’t make any changes until you actually do something.
3. You’ll also need to agree to Onyx’s terms of use. After you read them, untick “Display at launch” to avoid seeing the agreement every time you open the application. Then click “Agree” when you’re done.
4. Onyx also likes to verify the structure of your system disk up front. You don’t have to do this if you’re only planning on using the customization features of Onyx, but it should only take a moment and will reveal any potential problems with your startup disk. Click “Continue” or “Cancel,” as you like.
5. When the optional disk verification has been completed, click “OK.”
Revealing the Customization Menu
1. Click on the “Parameters” menu item in the Onyx menu bar.
2. Wait for the macOS parameters to be read from the file. This will only take a few seconds
3. This will now reveal the parameters menu, which contains most our options to customize macOS.
Parameters Submenu
The “General” menu contains many of the most useful system tweaks to customize macOS in Onyx.
Maintenance For Mac Os X
1. Under the “Misc. options” menu, you’ll find a few settings you can tweak.
- Show graphic effects when opening a window: toggle the visual effects seen when opening and closing windows.
- Show the rubber-band scrolling: toggle iOS-style “bounce” behavior that occurs when you try to scroll past the end of a window.
- Show the location path of the current desktop picture on the desktop: Show the file path of the desktop image in the middle of the desktop.
- Turn on the accent menu from the keyboard: toggle the ability to access the accent menu from the system’s keyboard.
2. Speed of display sheets: adjust how quickly “sheets,” or temporary program dialogs (like “Save” and “Open” prompts) are hidden and revealed.
3. Speed of display of help tags: adjusts how quickly tooltips will appear when you hover your cursor over an interface item, like a button.
4. Animated desktop background: choose from a list of preset animated backgrounds for your desktop.
Customizing your screenshot settings
In the section below the miscellaneous options, you’ll see a bunch of controls for customizing your screenshot options.
1. Screen capture format: Sets the file type for future screen captures.
2. Display shadow in window captures: Toggle the “drop shadow” effect applied to full window screen captures.
3. Include the date and the time in the name of captures: Toggle the appearance of date and time in your screen capture’s filenames. If you turn this off, your screen captures will get a numbered suffix instead.
4. Path: Change the location where new screen captures are saved. Click the “Select…” button to open a Finder window and choose a new location.
5. Name: Change the string that starts the name of a screen capture. If you leave “by default,” files will be named with “Screen Shot.” You can replace that text with anything you want, provided it’s allowed by the file system.
Confirming Changes
When you make changes, Onyx will often ask to restart a service to apply that change. For example, if you change the path of your screenshots, you’ll need to restart the SystemUIServer process.
Click “Continue” in the dialog box, but first confirm that the restarting process isn’t in the middle of an operation. That’s not important for something like SystemUIServer, but be careful with apps like Finder.
Customize macOS with popular tweaks
There are many more customizations available in Onyx than can be covered in one post, but here are a few favorites.
Set a custom login background picture
Change your login background picture to something more exciting. Keep in mind that only .png files will work here.
1. Click the “Login” tab.
2. In the “Background” section, click the “Select…” button to open a Finder dialog and pick a new image. Only PNG files are compatible.
Show a message at login
This will display a custom message at the login window, below the password field.
1. Click the “Login” tab.
2. Check “Show message in the login window.”
3. Type a message that will be permanently visible to all users at login, then click “Apply.”
Turn off disk image verification
This will disable the disk image verification process, which can be disabling slow for larger disk images and slow hard disks.
1. Click on the “Applications” tab.
2. Uncheck “Verify disk images (.dmg).”
Turn off Time Machine Local Backups
This setting disables Time Machine’s local snapshots, which are made to the system disk when Time Machine is temporarily disconnected from its main backup disk. These local backup files can take up a ton of space, making them unwieldy systems will smaller SSDs.
1. Click on the “Misc.” tab.
2. Click the “Turn Off” button next to “Time Machine local backups.”
Turn off the Notification Center
This tweak will completely disable the notification center (and all its notifications) so don’t do this unless you have a replacement utility like Growl up and running.
1. Click on the “Misc.” tab.
2. Click the “Turn Off” button next to “Notification Center.”
Conclusion
There is a lot more that Onyx is capable of, so explore the “Parameters” menu to find more options.
Lesser-Known Mac Tips, Tricks, and Customizations
Editor's Rating | |
---|---|
Features | |
Overall | |
Price | |
Customer Service |
Positives
- Entirely free
- Great maintenance functionality
- Stellar cleaning functionality
- Automated cleaning and maintenance
- Utilities enabling access to macOS' hidden features
- Detailed list of identified malware
Negatives
- No detailed data of reclaimed disk space
- Lacks option to review files before deleting
- Specific version of OnyX for each major OS version
When it comes to maintenance, one of the most frequently mentioned applications among Redditors and longtime Mac users is OnyX. Created by French developer Joël Barrière as a multifunctional tool for Mac optimization, OnyX lets you control many basic Unix programs already built into macOS. Such controls include verifying the startup disk, running a range of miscellaneous and cleaning tasks, configuring various parameters, deleting caches, and listing all installed items included in the package files of applications that users have installed on their computer.
OnyX is freeware and the main application Joël Barrière has developed after the launch of OS X Jaguar, in 2003. Titanium Software, his company’s website registered as a French domain, lists another two applications also developed by Barrière, Maintenance and Deeper. The former is a system maintenance and cleaning utility for macOS that takes OnyX's maintenance functionalities and puts it into a separate app, while Deeper focuses on offering personalization options for macOS users, such as enabling or disabling the hidden functions of various apps and more.
Features
OnyX features a nice, clean, easy-to-understand user interface that makes all features easily accessible. When you first open the app, it will display a prompt explaining that OnyX will verify the structure of your startup disk. If you click “OK” you'll notice your computer slow down a bit (which is common when this task is performed with Mac optimization tools) though apps such as MacBooster or CleanMyMac only perform this when you command them to do so. You can disable this functionality in preferences, otherwise it will display this prompt each time you launch the application.
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Start ScreenVerify Structure of the DiskOnyX Preferences
Verify the Structure of the Disk
Onyx Mac Maintenance
If this task results in a startup disk in good working order then OnyX will display its available functions: maintenance, cleaning, automation, utilities, parameters, info and log. The main features of the app, which are recommended for regular use, are the maintenance and cleaning functions, while the automation functionality is the combination of these two.
Cleaning
Choosing between either the ‘automation pane’ or the maintenance and cleaning panes will depend on how much time you are willing to spend on Mac optimization. You can remove cache files from System folders using either the System pane of the cleaning toolbar or the automation pane. Still, there is a slight difference between the two cleaning options: while the automation tool will perform all the cleaning and maintenance tasks in a single workflow and therefore only require a single Mac restart once the tasks are finished, choosing maintenance and cleaning actions separately will need multiple restarts throughout the process.
When you hit the “Execute” button, OnyX scans your computer and performs the tasks you have commanded. Don't expect too many visuals, however: unlike its paid competitors such as MacBooster or CleanMyMac, OnyX won't display findings such as the number of cookies or browsing history items it has identified while scanning your Mac. Neither will you know how much space the app will reclaim by deleting the system, user, font and application caches. That's information the developer didn't consider important with any of the app releases. Paid Mac optimization apps, on the other hand, focus heavily on visuals and such data.
Force Quit AppsCleaning Font CacheCleaning TaskRestart PromptOnyX AutomationSecure Delete
OnyX Cleaning Font Cache
Restart Required
OnyX Secure Erasing
During our testing a completely automated maintenance and cleaning task took a little more than seven minutes to finish on a MacBook Pro (late 2016) with 250GB of flash storage. Of course this will differ by computer since it depends on a number of factors, including system configuration, disk storage, stored data and more.
If you decide to spend more time on maintenance and cleaning, choosing tasks individually will require more of your time. Also, some of the tasks – such as cleaning the system, user and font caches and log files – will require a restart each time. That's something you should keep in mind.
Utilities
Along with cleaning and maintenance tasks, OnyX includes several other powerful features, such as utilities, parameters, and info. Under the utilities toolbar users will find various useful functions, ranging from gaining access to all of the Unix manual pages to changing the visibility status of a disk, folder or file. The ‘packages' task in Utilities will also look for a receipt file (.BOM) of an installed package (.PKG), and contains a list of all installed items stored in a system folder.
The parameters toolbar will enable you to personalize your working environment and toggle on or off certain hidden system functions and Apple applications. For example, with the Parameters toolbar it is possible to change the screenshot file type from its default of PNG to JPEG or change the save path for screenshots from the default location – your desktop – by clicking on the “Select” button, picking a desired folder and confirming it with the “Choose” button.
MaintenanceOnyX UtilitiesApplications OptimizationParameter PreferencesXProtectPurge Memory
OnyX Utilities
OnyX Utilities – Parameter Preferences
OnyX Purge Memory Function
A very powerful feature of the software is the info toolbar, which includes tools such as ‘protection’. In this pane you'll see a list of malware recognized by XProtect, the macOS protection system. You’ll also be able to show and delete the list of all downloaded items tested by XProtect. In our testing, XProtect recognized 77 malware items, according to the malware definitions.
Pricing
OnyX is freeware, meaning that you can download the application and use it for as long as you wish without paying a cent. If you like the application, you’re also allowed to distribute it, providing the software is not modified. Although the app is free, the developer accepts donations where you decide the amount. That compares to the $40 that OnyX's competitors MacPaw and IObit charge for a single Mac license. The developer pushes out updates regularly on its dedicated website Titanium-Software.fr.
Customer Service
Since OnyX is a free app and is mainly developed by a single person with the help of others from around the world, it doesn't have a dedicated customer service. Still, if you encounter a problem or anomaly, a misspelling or bad translation, or you have any suggestions for OnyX enhancements then you are free to contact the developer via email.
It is recommended that you back up your Mac when using OnyX for the first time, just in case anything goes wrong. However, we should note that we have been using OnyX for many years now and have had no issues with the software.
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OnyX Help File
OnyX also includes a help file that offers a detailed description of every action and task the application performs, unlike some of its competitors like MacBooster. So, if you don't understand a command you are about to execute, just click on the question mark in the bottom-right of the app window and a help page will open to answer your question regarding OnyX's command.
Bottom Line
Although macOS has built-in maintenance and cleaning scripts, a third-party application can be helpful in an effort to reclaim disk space occupied by cache files. What highly advanced macOS users familiar with Terminal can achieve by typing in complex command lines, OnyX – a reliable and free third-party Mac optimization application – does with a clean and easy-to-understand user interface.
OnyX doesn't deliver much detailed and visually organized information about the free space you are going to regain, but it still does a good job of reclaiming ‘lost space’. Functionalities offered by paid third-party competitors, such as freeing up memory, are also included in the app, although they are a bit hidden.
If you are looking for a reliable Mac optimization app to try risk free, OnyX is the one to start with. OnyX has been available for free since it was first released in 2003.
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