is there an equivalent "Rebuilding the desktop" option for OS X?

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Anybody know if OS X has or requires an occasional "rebuild the desktop" command that was in classic?



Thanks in advance to all who answer.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    Nope it's gone. Too bad too the desktop file was kind of useful.
  • Reply 2 of 15
    sc_marktsc_markt Posts: 1,402member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Scott

    Nope it's gone. Too bad too the desktop file was kind of useful.



    Scott,



    Thanks for your answer. So can I assume that OS X just runs and runs and doesn't require any maintenence of any kind?
  • Reply 3 of 15
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Oh absolutely.



    Except for repairing permissions.



    And /sbin/fsck.



    Oh, and then there's...









    Well, it's *better*...
  • Reply 4 of 15
    sc_marktsc_markt Posts: 1,402member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    Oh absolutely.



    Except for repairing permissions.



    And /sbin/fsck.



    Oh, and then there's...









    Well, it's *better*...




    So what do these "repairing permissions" and sbin and fsck commands do and should I run them every so often?
  • Reply 5 of 15
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Launch Disk Utility. Select your boot volume. Click the 'First Aid' tab. Two buttons will become enabled... Verify Permissions and Repair Permissions. Click the latter. It will scan and fix any permissions problems that are found on your boot disk.



    /sbin/fsck is a command line equivalent to Disk Utility's 'Repair Disk'. (In fact, DU just runs the command line tool.) You can't run it on a boot volume that you booted off of, so there's a special trick you can use to do so at boot time. It's kind of funky looking to the usual Mac user, and tends to freak them out on first exposure, so I'll let someone else take you down that path while I go get some grub.
  • Reply 6 of 15
    sc_marktsc_markt Posts: 1,402member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    Launch Disk Utility. Select your boot volume. Click the 'First Aid' tab. Two buttons will become enabled... Verify Permissions and Repair Permissions. Click the latter. It will scan and fix any permissions problems that are found on your boot disk.



    /sbin/fsck is a command line equivalent to Disk Utility's 'Repair Disk'. (In fact, DU just runs the command line tool.) You can't run it on a boot volume that you booted off of, so there's a special trick you can use to do so at boot time. It's kind of funky looking to the usual Mac user, and tends to freak them out on first exposure, so I'll let someone else take you down that path while I go get some grub.




    Kickaha,



    Thank for your responses.
  • Reply 7 of 15
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sc_markt

    Anybody know if OS X has or requires an occasional "rebuild the desktop" command that was in classic?



    Thanks in advance to all who answer.




    Yes you can rebuild OSX. Restart your computer with OS 9 as your startup disk while holding down the command option key. You will be asked if want to rebuild your desktop. Click yes. After OS 9 has been rebuilt it will ask you if you want to rebuild OS X. Click yes and it rebuilds OS X in the OS 9 environment.
  • Reply 8 of 15
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by iThinkdifferent

    Yes you can rebuild OSX. Restart your computer with OS 9 as your startup disk while holding down the command option key. You will be asked if want to rebuild your desktop. Click yes. After OS 9 has been rebuilt it will ask you if you want to rebuild OS X. Click yes and it rebuilds OS X in the OS 9 environment.



    It has no effect in Mac OS X, and I think it asks you if it should rebuild Mac OS X because you have the two systems on different partitions (probably called Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X)
  • Reply 9 of 15
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    Couldn't deleting the .DS_Store file in the OSX's Desktop Folder be considered rebuilding the desktop? Right now, I have this entry:



    Code:


    -rwxr-xr-x 1 zaan staff 15364 Oct 17 00:37 .DS_Store









    That file is 15 KB big. There has to be some info in there. And deleting it doesn't damage the system one bit.
  • Reply 10 of 15
    The .DS_Store file is located in almost every folder and contains the window settings/location information.
  • Reply 11 of 15
    I thought there were 2 or 3 files in your ~/Library/ directory that could be trashed and recreated as "desktop rebuild" equivilent.
  • Reply 12 of 15
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sc_markt

    Anybody know if OS X has or requires an occasional "rebuild the desktop" command that was in classic?



    Thanks in advance to all who answer.




    You mean, a procedure that actually does something quite specific, but becomes a totemic 'catch-all' placebo - the first stage advised in any fault-finding process.



    That would be fixing permissions.



    ps , you can trash the following in ~/Library/Preferences

    LSSchemes

    LSClaimedTypes

    LSApplications



    for a Desktop rebuild-like effect.



    i find the first thing for a user-based issue is to trash the contents of ~/library/Caches ( after a reboot, natch).
  • Reply 13 of 15
    arnearne Posts: 29member
    what's about quit and restart the finder?



    tinkertool can enable it.



    but on the other hand, who really needs

    to rebiuld the desktop. mine's never messed up.
  • Reply 14 of 15
    ibrowseibrowse Posts: 1,749member
    You can quit the Finder, or kill it in the terminal. If you're worried about maintenance in OS X just go to MacUpdate.com and look for Cocktail. Cocktail will make it easy to run any cron scripts in OS X, delete your caches, delete problematic locked files, repair your permissions, pre-bind system files, etc... It owns....
  • Reply 15 of 15
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,728member
    A a damaged user preference file called "com.apple.finder.plist" can cause many weird issues. Just go to ~/Library/Preferences and drag it to the desk top and reboot (you can delete it but I always prefer to wait till everything is OK before deleting). OS X will reset all Finder preference to default. This cures many issues that used to be associated with rebuilding the desktop such as icons for files not appearing correctly.
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