I used to do a "monthly maintenance" routine with Onyx, etc I had tech tool pro, disk warrior, I checked all my disc every month, and then a few people on this or another Mac forum said stop wasting your time and just deal with issues as they come. That was about 3-4 years ago, and I have had no issues since. I tend to agree then that the maintenance routine is a thing of the mid 2000's when Macs were very unstable. I'm not sure the car analogy works, but I do take my car it in every year and a half for a/b services.... but not every month.
So it's not even about the money for the apps, it's more about the time drain, and that it may not be needed or even helping.
I realize that the time it takes for any task needs to be considered. The car analogy is pertinent, as one can do some useful things on their own between trips to the dealer for service. For example, such tasks as checking air pressure in tires, changing the cabin air filter, changing the air filter, using a device like Battery Tender (
https://www.zoro.com/battery-tender-batt...mp;gclsrc=aw.ds) to keep the battery fully charged (and getting more life out of it), and changing fuses are things one can do for their own. And of course keep it clean.
For my weekly disk cleanup/maintenance/repair and backup tasks for both of my machines, I am actually multi-tasking and doing something else useful while those processes are running, and the timing works out perfectly. But, if I were to just do those tasks without doing something else, yes, that could deter me from doing it. But, I have been doing it for so long, it is second nature to me.
The one thing that should be done every time one uses their machine is to get rid of unneeded stuff. That takes hardly any time at all. For example, I have a folder entitled "Useful Software" on each of my machines, and within it are folders for containing updates for software (some of those folders contain the original app too). When an update comes out, I download it, install it, make sure it works, save the update to the applicable folder, and get rid of the "next to next" most recent update. That is, if I have versions 1 and 2 of an update, with 2 being the most recent one, and 3 becomes available, after saving it, I get rid of #1. (By the way, and knock on wood, I've never had an issue with an update not working. But, I can always revert back to the prior good one).
I also am constantly deleting EMails on a daily basis, but given I use Outlook, they actually do not get removed permanently from the Identity "file" for Office 2011. To permanently get rid of them, as part of my weekly processing, I run a simple to use process to permanently get rid of them.
To sum up, it all depends on how much one is willing to do, whether one wants to be proactive or reactive for issues, and devoting the time and effort.
