Computer viruses hold a sweet spot between boring, everyday occurrences, dating back to the 70s, and dramatic, science fiction fueled monsters that will haunt us in our new information-driven world.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac. Like the Windows iteration of the free version, though, this is not an always-on solution and is thus more suited for performing deep-scans and ridding yourself of particularly pernicious MacOS malware like Fruitfly. As MalwareBytes describes itself, it’s mostly a remediation solution. MacOS: Check Your LaunchAgents for Malicious Software. So if you’d like to see your own LaunchAgents folder, start by clicking on your Desktop or on the blue smiley face in your Dock to be sure Finder is your active application, then choose Go Computer or press Shift-Command-C. Malware Protection Lab Certifications. The researchers at AV-Test Institute evaluate Mac antivirus products on three criteria: protection, performance, and usability. A product can earn up to six points for each. Protection against malware protection is essential, of course, as is a low impact on performance.

One may ask, “Do you need antivirus to protect your Mac?” The reality is, all computers, even Macs, are vulnerable to malware (short for malicious software). While Apple takes a lot of security precautions, how secure your Mac is depends on your knowledge of how to check for viruses and how to remove them.

Whether you want to know how to remove virus from MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or iMac, learning to keep your information safe first is necessary and easy, with a few tips from the professionals.

How to scan your Mac for a virus

Why checking your Mac for viruses is important? If a computer virus was the only thing to watch out for, this world would be a simpler place. Malware, adware, spyware, malicious files, worms, trojans, phishing software, you name it, you should check for it. The old way of thinking was that because there are more PCs than Macs in the world, the “virus people” would focus on them instead of Macs. But, we’re not in the 2000s anymore. In fact, in 2018, Apple moved to the fourth position in global laptop shipments. This means, Macs are no longer shiny white boxes that are meant for fun and entertainment.

Not only do we run our businesses off Apple devices and different versions of macOS but we also store family photographs, send out sensitive info — and, thanks to cloud computing, each device is synchronized. Unfortunately, this means your Mac could be a far juicier target than the PC sitting in some corner cubicle.

Know what a Mac virus is

Most of us are familiar with recognizing what a virus looks like thanks to its atrocious design and alarming vocabulary. However, not all viruses take the shock-and-scare approach to getting on your Mac. The latest adware could look like an Adobe Flash Player installer, but is, of course, fake. Not only does it trick you into thinking it's something as normal as Flash, but the installed adware then pretends to be a virus scanner. It shows you bogus problems and encourages you to fix them by giving over sensitive information.

Other forms of viruses could look like Microsoft Office files (e.g. Excel sheets, Word documents), Adobe Photoshop add-ons, as well as music and movie files that you get from BitTorrent or other file sharing programs. But the most common file format that a virus takes is a .dmg file, because it was created by Apple itself to help install good software on your computer. Your task in securing your Mac is to look out for .dmg files showing up when you’re trying to install something. If you’re ever trying to download something you know is supposed to be an image, music, movie, or document, but you get a .dmg file instead — that is as red as a red flag gets in terms of viruses. Do yourself a favor and delete that file immediately.

Keep Mac virus sources in mind

When it comes to having your Mac infected by a virus, we probably expect the attack to come from a stranger. Truth be told, a lot of viruses come from our friends, family, and colleagues, who unfortunately became the primary victim and are now unintentionally passing their viruses to you.

A popular malware virus of 2017 was embedded into a Word document — a Mac Word file, not a PC one. In 2018, Apple discovered flaws in their Intel processor chips that could lead to two kinds of very ambitious strains of Mac viruses too. It’s wild to think that even iPads and iPhones can contract malware.

Prevent your Mac from getting viruses

Use Setapp tools to scan Mac for viruses. It's a necessary measure to keep your computer healthy.

Check Mac For Malware Free

How to check for malware

In an ideal world, scanning for viruses and the other methods for malware removal should be automatic and happen nearly continuously. In reality, you can consider yourself reasonably safe if you scan your Mac close to once a week. Fortunately, there are quite a few ways to make sure you are as protected as possible.

A good start to scan your Mac for viruses is to see whether you have applications installed that you don’t recognize:

1. Go to the Applications folder via Go > Applications in Finder or using the shortcut Shift + Command + A.
2. Scroll through the list and delete any unknown applications.
3. Then empty the trash.

The second step you should do is check for browser hijackers and adware extensions:

1. Go to Safari > Preferences. See what the Homepage URL is currently set to and correct if needed.
2. Then proceed to the Extensions tab and uninstall any you don’t recognize, as they could spy on you, save your private data, and redirect you to their malicious websites.

How to run a Mac virus scanner and stop viruses from stealing your information

It’s a common misconception that viruses only happen to people who are gullible, ignorant, or technologically illiterate. The stigma is that hackers prey on people, when in reality, they prey on behavior.

Our basic assumption with Macs is that we expect Apple and our applications to have done all the security work for us. In truth, every user has to adjust their own behavior when using their Mac.

Do you use public WiFi? Consider getting a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to encrypt the connection between your laptop and the external network. Shimo is a great VPN manager app that will help you here. While using it, raw information (whether sensitive or not) can’t be fed to any malicious programs lurking on your Mac, and hackers on the same network won’t be able to decode anything you’re working on.

Speaking of encryption, Macs using OS X Lion or later come with the option to encrypt their hard drives using FileVault 2. Although encryption won’t prevent viruses from entering your computer (for that, you’ll need a scanner), it would still be very helpful in stopping viruses from stealing your information. To turn on FileVault:

1. Go to System Preferences
2. Select Security & Privacy
3. Navigate to the FileVault tab
4. Choose Turn On FileVault

Keep your Mac secure and virus-free

Trademark signs of something being wrong with your Mac: slow processing memory, a bloated disk space, intense CPU usage, and network speed lag. Unfortunately, viruses don’t live in an easy-to-find location like your computer’s desktop. They can be embedded within an application, most notably, your favorite web browser, where it’s easier for them to view what you’re viewing and track what you’re typing. If you kept on seeing weird websites taking over your search bar, it's a sign that your browser has been hijacked. Other applications can get corrupted or infected too, especially if they have particularly weak security systems. Another example could be an email app you use or an open-source application that is behind on their patch upgrades.

If you think one of your applications is infected, a typical knee-jerk reaction would be to delete the whole thing and redownload it. Often, this will do the trick, but there are simpler solutions available. Clearing the application's cache should always be your first step, and, if there are optional hidden files, consider removing them as well.

Check Mac For Malware El Capitan

To remove any application’s cache and get rid of Mac malware from the Library folder:

1. Use the shortcut Shift + Command + G to Go to Folder
2. Type ~/Library/Caches and choose Go
3. Delete any particular files inside the folder

If you are unsure about deleting cache files manually, use an app like CleanMyMac X:

1. Launch CleanMyMac
2. Go to System Junk and click Scan
3. When the scan is complete, choose Review Details
4. Select User Cache Files and pick the caches you’d like to delete
5. Click Clean

In addition, CleanMyMac now features a Malware Removal function, using which should become your weekly habit.

1. In CleanMyMac, choose the Malware Removal tab
2. Click Scan
3. Follow the instructions given. Hopefully it should say your Mac is clean most of the time.

Unfortunately, not all viruses are easy-to-understand files that just sit on your computer. Sometimes they are root certificates that intercept your passwords and messages, and send a copy to hackers. To effectively secure yourself from this, only download apps with valid developer certificates. Which ones are those? It’s hard to know but Apple built a feature that could help you here.

1. Go to System Preferences
2. Select Security & Privacy
3. In the Allow apps downloaded from: select App Store and identified developers

You are well on your way to being protected from malware now. But, the truth is, simply avoiding viruses is not enough. You need to be proactive — it’s time to get a virus scanner.

Check viruses like a pro

If you want complete Mac security, there is no better tool than CleanMyMac X, which can effortlessly scan for all the latest viruses, malware, spyware, and more. Just launch the app on the regular basis and click the Smart Scan option to inspect your Mac for any suspicious activity, besides other suggested features for optimization and cleaning out old files.

Remove viruses from Mac completely

Using a tool like CleanMyMac makes getting rid of viruses, of all shapes and formats, very easy. After the scan, it tells you what it’s found and gives you the option to remove it completely right then and there. Additionally, it will give you all kinds of other great options on how to optimize your Mac’s performance.

As mentioned above, hackers who want to steal your information don’t target you specifically, they target your behavior. So, with this in mind, change your behavior when it comes to using your Mac in potentially unsafe ways. Recognize that viruses come and go, all the time, and across many different file formats. If you get a virus, you’re not ruined.

No viruses with Setapp

Use Setapp tools to scan Mac for viruses. It's a necessary measure to keep your computer healthy.

Arm your computer with encryption tools (like FileVault and a VPN), so that your information can’t be stolen. Practice a healthy dose of skepticism when downloading files. But, most importantly, get professional apps that bring you the most results, like CleanMyMac or Shimo — all of which are available on Setapp for your to try free. So get a scan now and see what it says.

Though it's not easy to hack into or break through a Mac's security, it is possible, especially if someone accidentally installs malware without realizing it. If your Mac is running slow or you're seeing unusual advertisements within your web browser you might have accidentally installed malware at some point. Don't worry. It happens to the best of us (not me, of course). There are things you can do without having to burn it all down.

The problem: Mac malware in the Library folder

Serenity Caldwell writing for iMore in 2017:

My father-in-law's MacBook Pro had been running into curious slowdowns for a two-year-old laptop and he kept on seeing weird sites taking over his Safari and Firefox search bars. It was clear to me that his browser had been hijacked.

We got rid of the browser hijack pretty quickly — I suggest using Cella's excellent how-to if you ever run into a browser hijack yourself — but the slowdowns were more curious. Upon further investigation, I found a couple of self-professed 'Mac security programs' that popped up, demanding money to 'clean your Mac from junk'.

Spoiler: These programs were the junk. And worst of all, they'd seemingly added a bunch of nonsense files into this computer's Library folder, with random folder names like 'prestidigitation' and 'beeswax'.

Now, I want to preface: I'd never seen an attack like this on a Mac before in my life, and finding this kind of full-Mac hijack is very rare. It's likely that he accidentally installed one of these 'security' programs (or had it installed), which spiraled out of control from there.

These hijacks didn't appear to be able to do much beyond slow down his machine with endless failed attempts to run a program — the process didn't have admin permissions, so it couldn't execute a thing from the library. But because they were there, they were constantly crashing aspects of his Mac. I knew I had a malfunctioning laptop on my hands, so I turned to my age-old troubleshooting checklist.

How to fix a corrupted Mac

If you're working on a computer that has slowed down beyond reasonable aging or is otherwise acting beyond the pale, here are my favorite tactics you can take to try and restore it to its former glory.

Update the system software

This is almost always the first thing I do when troubleshooting Macs: Chances are, the user hasn't installed a security update or other software updates that may be slowing their computer to a crawl.

1. Click on the Apple menu icon in the upper left corner of the screen.

2. Select App Store to open the Mac App Store.

3. Click on the Updates tab at the top of the Mac App Store window.

4. Install all relevant updates. (You may need the Apple ID and password for the machine.)

If the computer is running macOS Sierra, you can avoid having to do this troubleshooting step in the future by turning on Automatic Install in System Preferences, which can automatically download newly available updates in the background, and install them overnight.

1. With the Mac App Store open, click on App Store in the upper left corner of the Menu bar.

2. Click on Preferences.

3. Under Automatically check for updates, check the following boxes:

   • Download newly available updates in the background
   • Install app updates
   • Install macOS updates
   • Install system data files and security updates

Check the disk for errors

If software updates aren't doing the trick, the next thing to check is the hard drive itself. With Apple's Internet Recovery partition, fixing a cranky drive is an easy process.

1. Restart your Mac.
2. During reboot, hold down Command-R until it starts up.
3. Once rebooted, you should be in the Internet Recovery Partition. Select Disk Utility.

4. Click Continue.

5. In Disk Utility, click on the First Aid button,

6. Click on Run to execute.

Your Mac will then run a cursory check on its hard drive to determine if there's anything wrong — and if so — if it can fix it.

Reset the NVRAM/PRAM and SMC

If neither app updates nor disk repair are helping, sometimes a good cache flush can get your Mac running just a bit more smoothly.

To reset the NVRAM (or, on older Macs, PRAM), reboot the Mac and hold down the following keyboard command during startup for at least twenty seconds: Command-Option-P-R.

After you reset your NVRAM, you may be required to reconfigure some system settings (like sound and time zones), which are stored in that cache.

An SMC reset is a bit more complicated, and Apple recommends it only after all other troubleshooting avenues have been exhausted.

If you're using a laptop:

1. Shut down your Mac and plug it in.
2. Restart the computer by pressing the Power button along with the keyboard command Shift-Control-Option.
3. Release these keys, then just press the Power button to properly start your computer.

If you're using a desktop:

1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Unplug it and wait for at least 20 seconds.
3. Plug the Mac back in and wait 5-10 seconds.
4. Restart your Mac with the Power button.

Partition your disk (or erase it)

After exhausting all other avenues, this was the solution we came across to properly fix the broken laptop. The hard drive had been so corrupted by these 'security' programs that there was nothing I could do to fix it. When Safari launched over the login screen after a reboot, I knew my usual fixes wouldn't work: It was time to bring out the big guns.

In most cases, I'd grab an external drive, back up the corrupted disk, then wipe the drive clean with the Internet Recovery partition and start over. But there were a couple of reasons that wouldn't work here:

• We were on vacation, and lacking any sort of external media.
• With a semi-corrupted disk, we couldn't just clone the user folder and restore the new disk from a backup — we'd have to do a clean install, which meant moving files over one by one. If we'd missed something and moved all the old files to an external drive, my father-in-law would have had to carry it everywhere just in case.

Given that this laptop had a 500GB hard drive — only 40GB of which was being used — I had an alternate idea: I'd partition the drive, again using Internet Recovery, and install macOS Sierra on the new partition. Essentially, it would be a 'clean' new computer for my father-in-law to work on, but all the original data would still exist on the old partition in case he needed to grab a file.

Note: In order to partition your drive, you'll need enough free space on your drive to do so — at least 30GB. If you're light on space, you may want to back up your corrupted disk to a USB drive, instead.

How to create a partition on your Mac

1. Open Finder from your dock.

2. Select Applications.

3. Scroll down and open the Utilities folder.

4. Double-click to open Disk Utility.

5. Select your hard drive in the Disk Utility window. It will be the first drive on the list. It might be named 'Fusion,' or 'Macintosh HD.'
6. Click on the Partition tab.

7. Click the plus (+) button.

8. Change the size of the partition you wish to use by dragging the resize controls. The used space is represented in blue.
9. Name the new partition.

10. Click apply.

Disk Utility will check the disk and make changes. This will take several minutes.Disk Utility will then make the changes. After that's completed, quit Disk Utility to return to the main Internet Recovery menu.

1. Click on Reinstall macOS.

2. Click Continue.

3. Click Agree to agree to Apple's licensing agreements.
4. Choose the New Mac hard drive as the disk you'd like to install macOS onto.

5. Press Install.

6. The Mac will download a fresh copy of your operating system from the App Store and will install it. The speed of this process entirely depends on your Mac's connection speed to the Internet. You can wait an hour or longer on a slower connection.
7. Your Mac will restart automatically into the new partition once the software has downloaded, then the installation of the operating system will continue.

After you finish setting up the new hard drive, it's time to move your files over. Because of the way partitioning works, your old hard drive partition will show up next to your currently-active partition, just like an external drive; you can then grab any files you need from it.

1. Launch a Finder window.
2. Under Devices in the sidebar, locate your original Macintosh HD.

3. Copy any files you'd like to keep from your old hard drive to the new machine.

Note: If you want to copy over applications, I'd strongly suggest redownloading them from the source — the Mac App Store or the company's website — rather than trying to copy them over from the old partition.

From here, you can follow instructions for setting a Mac up from scratch when it comes to installing and customizing anything else.

I generally recommend keeping the old drive partition around for at least a few months in case you or your family member forgets to move something over; after that period, however, you can easily delete the old partition and move to the new partition full time.

Consider additional anti-malware protection

While malware on the Mac is rare, it does crop up, as we've demonstrated. Having the right tools to get rid of malware can be an important part of keeping your Mac safe and secure. There are a number of tools that you can choose from, including popular programs like BitDefender and Kaspersky, that will help you keep malware from infecting your Mac.

Questions?

Do you have any must-follow troubleshooting steps? Let us know in the comments.

Updated July 2019: Added a sub-section regarding anti-malware protection.

Serenity Caldwell contributed to an earlier version of this guide.

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