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With a feature called First Aid, your Mac scans internal or external disks to find problems related to their formating or directory structure. These problems can hurt your Mac in many different ways. From apps shutting down unexpectedly to your Mac failing to function altogether. Of course, you can use Disk Utility for many other things, such as mounting or unmounting disks, creating a partition of your disk, and erasing or formatting your disks completely, among other things. But for the sake of this post, we’ll only show you how you can use it to scan your Mac’s disks—whether they’re internal or external hard drives—for problems and how you can try to fix them. Before We Get Started This isn’t strictly necessary, but we recommend that you create a backup of your Mac before beginning. This is precautionary in case you have damaged files that you’ll need to recover or if your Mac has errors that you can’t repair. How to Open Disk Utility If your Mac is working properly, you can find the Disk Utility App on your LaunchPad. It should be in your Utilities or in a folder called “Other.” Launch the app and go to the next step. If your Mac isn’t starting all the way, you need to access Disk Utility when you’re booting it. Here’s how. If your Mac has an Intel processor, do this: 1. Turn on your Mac. 2. Immediately press and hold Command (⌘) and R. 3. Release both keys after you see the Apple logo on your screen. If you have an Apple Silicon Mac powered with the M1 Chip, you need to do this: 1. Turn on your Mac and keep pressing the Power Button until you see the startup options window. 2. Click the gear icon labeled Options and then click Continue. How to Use Disk Utility After you’ve launched Disk Utility, you’ll need to see all the devices available on your Mac. To do this, click on View located on top of the window next to Disk Utility and then click on Show All Devices. After you’ve done this, you’ll be able to see all your disks, containers, and volumes on the left side menu. You’re going to need this in order to find where the problem is located. Can’t See Your Disks? If you can’t see any of your disks, whether they’re internal or external, on Disk