Applies to: Sophos Home for MacOS 

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. 

Computers running Sophos Home are protected by real-time features which will detect and stop threats as they try to access the system. If an infection is suspected, or if a threat  was recently cleared, a manual scan can be performed to ensure the system is healthy. 

Running a Fast scan inspects a specific set of folders and files, including user files (full list here). The more files involved, the longer the scan will take.

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