Utilities (singular: utility) are computer programs which, unlike most application programs, are not focused on user productivity as a primary purpose. They mainly exist to accomplish tasks related to the maintenance of a computer and its peripherals, such as drives for data storage.
Utilities for Mac
Mac OS X includes approximately 20 utilities in the Applications > Utilities folder. As of Mac OS X 10.3, users can press command-shift-U in the Finder to access them.
Examples
Some example utilities from Apple and 3rd-party developers include:
- Backup programs, such as Apple Backup, Carbon Copy Cloner, Retrospect, SuperDuper!, and Time Machine. These utilities help make a backup copies of documents, folders, or drives for safekeeping.
- Document recovery software, such as Norton Undelete, which can help recover files that were inadvertently deleted.
- Drive repair programs, such as Disk First Aid, Disk Utility, and DiskWarrior, which help fix corrupted or ailing volumes, from floppy disks to hard drives to solid-state drives.
References
- Utility software at the Free On-Line Dictionary Of Computing. 2007-02-02.
External links
- Utility software at Wikipedia