Updates and More

You can access extras related to this ebook on the web (use the link in Ebook Extras, near the end; it’s available only to purchasers). On the ebook’s Take Control Extras page, you can:

• Download any available new version of the ebook for free, or buy any subsequent edition at a discount.

• Download various formats, including PDF, EPUB, and Mobipocket. (Learn about reading on mobile devices on our Device Advice page.)

• Read the ebook’s blog. You may find new tips or information, as well as a link to an author interview.

If you bought this ebook from the Take Control website, it has been added to your account, where you can download it in other formats and access any future updates. However, if you bought this ebook elsewhere, you can add it to your account manually; see Ebook Extras.

Basics

To review background information that might help you understand this book better, such as finding System Preferences and working with files in the Finder, I recommend reading Tonya Engst’s ebook Take Control of Mac Basics.

In this book, when I use the term disk by itself, I generally mean your Mac’s primary internal storage device—whether that’s a mechanical hard drive, an SSD, or other solid-state storage. (Apple, after all, still uses the term “Macintosh HD” as the default name for your Mac’s startup volume, even when it’s not stored on a hard disk.) A drive is a physical device for storing data; a single drive can comprise one or more volumes, or logical storage devices. The volume that contains the copy of macOS currently used to boot your Mac is your startup volume. I’ll specify hard drive when I need to talk specifically about the little boxes with spinning platters.

What’s New in Version 3.1

Version 3.1 is a minor revision that brings this book up to date with macOS 10.14 Mojave and various changes in third-party software. Along with numerous small edits, this version contains the following significant changes:

• Updated the discussion in Get a Disk Repair Utility to reflect the current state of support (or lack thereof) for APFS and Mojave in third-party disk utilities

• Clarified the instructions in Use Disk Utility in El Capitan or Later to cover repairing an APFS volume

• Added the topic You Can’t Boot from an External Volume, which includes issues affecting Macs with T2 chips

• Revised and expanded the instructions in Apple Mail Fails to Connect to reflect recent versions of Apple Mail

What Was New in the Third Edition

The third edition of this book (version 3.0) represented not only a change in its version number but also in its title. This book’s most recent ancestor in the Take Control series was Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac, Second Edition, which was published in June 2007 and last updated in September 2012. I subsequently acquired publication rights to the book, updated it significantly, and rereleased it with a new title (Troubleshooting Your Mac: A Joe On Tech Guide) in October 2015, followed by a version 1.1 update in September 2016.

After I purchased Take Control Books from TidBITS Publishing Inc. in May 2017, I decided to bring this book back under the Take Control umbrella. That meant reverting to its previous title and incrementing the edition number by 1 (even though there was, in effect, another edition of the book between the second and third).

Along with a large number of minor changes, here are the major changes between Troubleshooting Your Mac: A Joe On Tech Guide version 1.1 and Take Control of Troubleshooting Your Mac, Third Edition:

• Updated the book for compatibility with macOS 10.13 High Sierra, including instructions for the latest versions of Console, Disk Utility, System Preferences, and other apps

• Updated the text throughout to cover Macs with USB-C connectors, including mention of the fact that Macs thus equipped can use USB target disk mode (see, for example, Acquire a Secondary Startup Volume and Erase and Restore from a Backup)

• Updated my advice in Think About an Insurance Policy, since Safeware no longer offers individual policies

• Revised my recommendations as to how much available disk space you should have; see Check Available Disk Space

• Removed obsolete advice about fonts and Time Machine

• Significantly updated the instructions in Fix Incoming Mail Problems and Fix Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Problems to cover Mail in Sierra and High Sierra