How to Clean Your Mac Before a Conference

A conference is a hostile environment for a MacBook. Three days of dodgy Wi-Fi, public networks, low-outlet venues, taking notes in the dark, demoing your work to strangers, opening sketchy USB drives at sponsor booths, and trying to keep up with three different group chats from the friends you came with.

Your Mac needs to be clean, fast, and well-defended before you leave. Here’s the full pre-conference setup.

A week before: the slow stuff

Some prep takes time and shouldn’t be left until the night before.

FileVault. If FileVault isn’t on, turn it on now. System Settings > Privacy & Security > FileVault. Initial encryption takes a few hours and you don’t want to be doing it the night before you leave.

Battery health check. Apple menu > About This Mac > More Info > Battery > Battery Health. If you’re below 80% capacity and the conference is multi-day with limited outlets, consider battery service before you go.

Software updates. Run all macOS and app updates on home Wi-Fi over the weekend. Conference Wi-Fi will fail you for big downloads.

Backup. Plug in your Time Machine drive. Run a fresh backup. If you don’t already have one, set one up. A stolen or lost laptop without a recent backup is a multi-week recovery.

Two days out: storage and cleanup

A clogged Mac is slow at exactly the time you need it fast.

Apple menu > About This Mac > More Info > Storage Settings. Aim for at least 30 GB free. The big wins:

• Downloads folder. Sort by Date Added. Trash anything from before last month.
• Old screen recordings. Search Finder for .mov files over 100 MB.
• Photos already in iCloud. Turn on “Optimize Mac Storage” in Photos > Settings.
• System Data. The hidden gray monster. Caches, logs, snapshots, app leftovers — usually 30–80 GB.
• Old iOS backups. ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup often holds backups of phones you don’t own anymore.

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Conference-specific prep

These are the conference-specific items that make the difference.

Notes structure

Build a folder for the conference now. Don’t take notes in random places that you can’t find later.

Documents/
└── 2025-Conference-Name/
    ├── Notes/
    │   ├── Day 1/
    │   ├── Day 2/
    │   ├── Day 3/
    │   └── Sessions to revisit/
    ├── Business cards (photos and contacts)/
    ├── Slides and resources/
    │   ├── From sessions I attended/
    │   └── From talks people pointed me to/
    ├── My talk (if presenting)/
    └── Receipts and travel/

Notes can be in Apple Notes, Notion, Obsidian, plain text — whatever. Just have one canonical place per day.

People plan

If you’re going to network, prepare:

• Your contact info ready to share (Apple’s Contacts has a “share my card” feature, or use a tool like LinkedIn QR code)
• A short version of “what do you do” practiced
• A list of people you specifically want to find (in your notes app)
• Your LinkedIn updated (your most recent role and headshot at minimum)

Talk prep (if presenting)

If you’re giving a talk, see our presentation prep guide for the full ritual. The conference-specific extras:

• Slides on USB stick as backup
• PDF of slides emailed to yourself
• Slides uploaded to Google Slides as a cloud fallback
• Adapters for HDMI, VGA, and USB-C
• A test on the venue’s actual A/V setup if speaker check is offered

Privacy and security: hostile networks

Conference Wi-Fi is one of the worst networks you’ll ever connect to. Hundreds of people on a hastily-deployed access point. Often unencrypted. Usually heavily filtered.

Lock down sharing. System Settings > General > Sharing. Disable everything you don’t actively need. AirDrop should be Contacts Only — Everyone is asking for trouble in a crowd.

Firewall on. System Settings > Network > Firewall. On. Stealth mode optional but worth considering.

Password manager only. Don’t sign into accounts via “remember me” on conference Wi-Fi. Use a password manager that requires unlock for each access.

No public USB drives. Vendor booths give out USB sticks with promotional materials. Don’t plug them into your main Mac. If you need to read one, use a separate machine or a virtual machine.

Be careful with QR codes. Conference signage and swag often have QR codes. Scan with the iPhone Camera (which previews the URL before opening) and only follow if it goes to the legitimate domain.

VPN. A reputable paid VPN (Mullvad, ProtonVPN) for conference Wi-Fi is genuinely useful. Free VPNs are usually worse than no VPN.

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Battery strategy

Most conference venues have limited outlet access. You’ll be running on battery for hours at a time.

Maximize battery health day-of:

• Charge to 100% the night before
• Lower screen brightness one notch
• Disable Bluetooth when not using AirPods
• Quit background apps (Slack, Spotify, Discord — open only when needed)
• Set up Low Power Mode in Battery settings to auto-enable below 20%

Bring backup power:

• USB-C power bank with 65W+ PD output (charges a MacBook Pro at meaningful speed while you use it)
• 20,000 mAh capacity is the sweet spot — full MacBook recharge plus phone topup
• Charging cable for the power bank
• Multi-port USB-C charger for hotel room

Find outlets early. When you arrive at a session room, scout outlet locations. Sit near one if you’re below 50%.

Apps and notifications

Quit everything you don’t need on stage or in sessions.

• Slack workspaces for personal projects
• Discord
• Mail (check at meal breaks, not in talks)
• iMessage (if you’ll be on AirPods)
• Spotify (open when you need music)
• Adobe Creative Cloud helpers
• Cloud storage sync (manually pause if you’ll be on metered conference Wi-Fi)

Configure a Focus mode called “Conference”:

• Allow only your travel companions and family
• Allow scheduled notifications (calendar)
• Block social, news, work alerts
• Auto-trigger during conference hours

Camera and microphone

Some sessions have unofficial photo policies. Some speakers don’t want their slides photographed. Some talks are off-the-record entirely.

Read the conference code of conduct before you go. Use the right tool:

• For permitted slide photos: Camera or screenshot if it’s online
• For taking notes during talks: a notes app, not photos
• For voice memos: Voice Memos app, but check whether recording is permitted first

For your camera and mic permissions: System Settings > Privacy & Security > Camera and Microphone. Audit which apps have access. Disable any you don’t need actively.

Apps that earn their place at a conference

Worth installing or refreshing:

• The conference’s official app. They almost always have one. Schedule, maps, attendees list.
• Maps with offline downloads. Apple Maps doesn’t always do offline; Google Maps has a “download area” feature.
• Translate. Apple Translate works offline if you download languages first.
• Camera scanner. For business cards. Notes can scan, or use a dedicated app like Genius Scan.
• A clean notes app you actually use. Not three. One.

Day-by-day routine

Each evening at the conference:

• Triage notes from the day (move any “follow up later” items to a dedicated list)
• Save interesting links and slide decks to your notes folder
• Save business card photos to Contacts (or scan to a CRM app)
• Charge the laptop, charge the phone, charge the power bank
• Set Focus for tomorrow

Each morning:

• Restart if it’s been a few days (clears RAM)
• Charge to 100% before leaving the hotel
• Pack: Mac, charger, adapters, power bank, lanyard, water

After the conference

Don’t let conference notes rot. Within 48 hours of getting home:

1. Move action items into your normal task system
2. Scan business cards into Contacts or a CRM
3. Send follow-up emails to people you said you’d follow up with
4. File slide decks and resources into your reference system
5. Delete blurry photos from your camera roll
6. Run a quick cleanup tool to clear any conference-time crud (downloaded slides, vendor PDFs, etc.)

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What goes wrong unprepared

Things I’ve watched at conferences:

• MacBook out of storage on day one, can’t import the slides someone shared
• Battery dies mid-talk because no outlet was scouted
• Adapter incompatible with the venue projector
• Notes scattered across Apple Notes, Notion, paper, and napkins — none findable later
• Identity theft from logging into a fake conference Wi-Fi network
• Sponsor USB stick contained malware

Most of these are preventable in 30 minutes of pre-conference prep. The conference itself is exhausting enough — don’t fight your laptop on top of it.

Have a good conference. Take notes you’ll actually read. Charge your stuff.