Applies to: Sophos Home Premium (Mac) only

What is a Fast Scan, and what does it do? 

The Sophos Home Mac fast scan is a default scan that targets the key system folders and areas where threats may be found. It does not target any other locations, than the ones found here.  Customers running Sophos Home are protected by its real-time features, which will detect and stop threats as they try to access their systems. However, if an infection is suspected, or after having cleared a threat, customers may run a manual scan to ensure the system is healthy again. 

Note: Fast Scan does not scan disk images, zip files and other archives. 

How do I run a Fast Scan?

1. Click the Sophos Home icon on the Menu bar to open the Sophos Home main window.
2. Click on the three dots on the upper-right side of the window and select Scan.
   
   
3. Click Start Scan
   
   
   Note: To run a Full Scan instead, you may check that option. Visit this article for more information on Full Scans. 

List of Fast Scan locations:

• /System/Library/LaunchAgents/
• /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/
• /private/var/root/Library/LaunchAgents/
• /System/Library/StartupItems/
• /Library/StartupItems/
• /Library/LaunchAgents/
• /Library/LaunchDaemons/
• /private/var/run/
• /private/var/tmp/
• /private/etc/
• /private/tmp/
• ~/Public/
• ~/Desktop/
• ~/Documents/
• ~/Downloads/
• ~/Library/Application Support/
• ~/Library/Preferences/
• ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
• /Applications/

Related information

• Running a full system scan on Mac
• Information and prevention of ransomware
• Reporting false positives