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Anacron
Anacron
3.3

4.5

Anacron free download for Mac

Anacron

3.3
14 November 2007

Auto-runs periodic maintenance scripts.

Overview

Anacron runs the periodic daily, weekly and monthly tasks on your Mac even if the machine (a laptop, for example) spends much of its time asleep or switched-off. Anacron silently checks when you reboot and every sixty minutes while the computer is running to see if the various periodic scripts are overdue, and runs them if necessary. The advantage of Anacron over many other solutions to this issue is that it runs as a proper Unix background process, requires no user intervention, and uses the regular periodic scripts, including /etc/daily.local, /etc/weekly.local and /etc/monthly.local.

Note: This version of Anacron will run on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) but it is not needed, as the Leopard launchd will run skipped jobs when the machine is next awake.

What's new in Anacron

Version 3.3: Release notes were unavailable when this listing was updated.

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9 Anacron Reviews

Rate this app:

Ilgaz
Ilgaz
05 July 2009

Most helpful

You don't need it on Tiger and Leopard if you never, ever shutdown your machine and put it to sleep instead of shutting down. For many of desktop users, ''sleep'' is a convinience during daytime where they really don't use their computer. At night, most of them will shut it down since there is NO POINT of putting a desktop machine to sleep overnight just to save 10-20 secs. We don't use Windows, OS X has some amazing tricks which makes boot process faster than anything. So if your machine was powered off every 3:15 AM instead of sleep, the maintenance scripts will never run. Install anacron if you don't want that situation.
Like (1)
Version 3.3
jackiemcclements
jackiemcclements
14 February 2020
can't find a download link
Like
Version 3.3
Jab47
Jab47
17 February 2011
I am trying to remove this but am having problems following the instructions that came with the installer. I am getting permissions denied a lot
Like
Version 3.3
Doug-Engelbart
Doug-Engelbart
22 March 2010
Thank you, Ilgaz. But then Apple should offer an option in Leopard where users can define their ideal, regular cron time. Otherwise that's suboptimal and not user-friendly at all.
Like
Version 3.3
Ilgaz
Ilgaz
05 July 2009
You don't need it on Tiger and Leopard if you never, ever shutdown your machine and put it to sleep instead of shutting down. For many of desktop users, ''sleep'' is a convinience during daytime where they really don't use their computer. At night, most of them will shut it down since there is NO POINT of putting a desktop machine to sleep overnight just to save 10-20 secs. We don't use Windows, OS X has some amazing tricks which makes boot process faster than anything. So if your machine was powered off every 3:15 AM instead of sleep, the maintenance scripts will never run. Install anacron if you don't want that situation.
Like (1)
Version 3.3
3 answer(s)
Doug-Engelbart
Doug-Engelbart
05 November 2009
Hi; is there a tool to change the point of time at which Leopard automatically runs its maintenance cron scripts? Sometimes I'm still working at 03:15 am, so it would be better if the crons run at 06:00 am, for example.
Like (1)
Version 3.3
Ilgaz
Ilgaz
20 March 2010
There were utilities like "Lingon" to set/hack the launchd daemon configurations but I am not sure if they will work fine on current OS X. They already warn against changing system launch daemon configurations.
Like
Version 3.3
Doug-Engelbart
Doug-Engelbart
22 March 2010
Thank you, Ilgaz. But then Apple should offer an option in Leopard where users can define their ideal, regular cron time. Otherwise that's suboptimal and not user-friendly at all.
Like (1)
Version 3.3
Atalantia
Atalantia
31 March 2008
I'm not shure if its running on 10.5
Like
Version 3.3
1 answer(s)
Atalantia
Atalantia
31 March 2008
OK I see... no need for this on 10.5
Like
Version 3.3
25 October 2005
What happens if I don't think about Anacron running in the background and I put my iBook to sleep just when it is running daily, weekly or monthly? I assume these jobs are meant to not be interrupted once they have started. So although Anacron sounds convenient I fear that it could mess up. Isn't it then better to start these jobs manually? Just asking! This is not a claim that what I fear is correct in any way.
Like
Version 3.0
Anonymous
Anonymous
17 June 2005
It will not run on my Dual USB G3 iBook 500! The agony, the agony! What does it take to get it to work?!? This sounds like a great solution.
Like
Version 3.0
1 answer(s)
Anonymous
Anonymous
18 June 2005
And yes I am running 10.4. 10.4.1 actually.
Like
Version 3.0
Anonymous
Anonymous
21 May 2005
Is this from the same author of the previous OS X anacron port at Alistair's place? Does it matter if I install 3.0 over 2.3?
Like
Version 3.0
Anonymous
Anonymous
21 May 2005
Reliable, faultless, also in Mac OS X 10.4 - I have been using Anacron quite for a while. Helps mainly to keep the logfiles in /private/var/log small. Otherwise only useful to command-line users, because it keeps the locate- und whatis-databases up to date.
Like
Version 3.0

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App requirements: 
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  • Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later
Category: 

System Utilities

•

System

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