I haven't updated this since Mojave, but these scripts never did anything important for most Mac users. They are just leftovers from macOS' Unix underpinnings.
Periodic Maintenance Scripts
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(Originally posted for Leopard, this list has been updated for Mojave.)
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Here is what the daily scripts do:
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110.clean-tmps Delete temporary files in /tmp that have not been accessed for at least 3 days. The most significant thing the daily scripts do (in Leopard) is delete temporary files (in /tmp) that have not been accessed in at least 3 days. But /tmp is cleared as part of the startup process, so there will never be anything to delete on a system that is restarted frequently. The periodic scripts are mostly for "long-lived" systems, i.e., systems that have been up continuously for weeks or months at a stretch.
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130.clean-msgs Delete old system announcements. This is relevant only for multi-user Unix systems.
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140.clean-rwho Delete stale rwho messages older than 7 days. This has to do with Unix networks, and is irrelevant for almost everyone.
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400.status-disks Writes some disk status information in the daily.out log.
Disk status:
Filesystem ? ? Size ? Used? Avail Capacity ? iused ? ? ifree %iused? Mounted on
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420.status-network Writes some system status information in the daily.out log.
Network interface status:
Name? Mtu ? Network ? ? ? Address? ? ? ? ? ? Ipkts Ierrs? ? Opkts Oerrs? Coll
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430.staus-rwho Writes a system status message (mainly system uptime) in the daily.out log. This is just reporting, not maintenance.
Local system status:
e.g. 7:40? up 1 day, 11:48, 5 users, load averages: 1.30 1.16 1.14
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999.local Normally not used.
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That's it, unless you or your system administrator have defined some local tasks. Unless you are running a Unix cluster or regularly using your Mac as a fax machine -- and shutting the machine down every night, without exception -- there is nothing urgent in the daily scripts.
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The weekly scripts update one database, of interest only to Unix users. If you are not a Unix user there is never any reason to run weekly.
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310.locate The locate database is used by the locate command. If you are a regular user of locate, you should evaluate whether the index as built by weekly is complete enough for your purposes.
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320.whatis The whatis database is an index of Unix man pages. It only needs to be rebuilt if you have installed new Unix documentation. In that case, the logical time to rebuild whatis is as part of the installation process, rather than waiting for the next weekly run. Again, if you are not a Unix user, you do not need to rebuild this database at all.
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999.local Normally not used.
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The monthly scripts may do two things.
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199.rotate-fax Recycle fax logs. If you do not use your Mac as a fax machine, it is never necessary to run monthly.
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200.accounting Write some accounting information in the monthly.out log.
Doing login accounting:
total? ? ? 972.73
user? ? ? 972.65
root ? ? ? ? 0.08
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999.local Normally not used.
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Somewhere along the line someone applied the term "maintenance" to the periodic scripts, leading many to believe that they perform some crucial tasks. In fact, it is only minor housekeeping. And they really do run automatically if needed, and the housekeeping is more minor than ever.
Al Varnell