Display hidden files in Spotlight search results?

Question

Level 1

65 points

Display hidden files in Spotlight search results?

I have the remains of a long-deleted utility which has left the file CleanAppDaemon which randomly uses up all my RAM and though I thought I'd found and removed it, but seemingly not.

I know how to display hidden files, but that only works if you know what folder they are in. Is there a way to do it in Spotlight/cmd-f other than via Terminal?

The attached shows what Activity Monitor displays in moments of crisis! If I force quit usage returns to the horizontal green line.

Cheers,

Colin

iMac 27″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Oct 22, 2020 7:26 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

John Galt

Level 10

146,684 points

Oct 23, 2020 12:31 PM in response to Colin Cohen

Refer to the following Discussion: All is well.....or so I thought

There is at least one other Discussion that identified the file responsible for invoking that process in

/Library/LaunchDaemons

As I wrote,

The file that launches the process is probably not hidden. Look for it in these three separate folders:

~/Library/LaunchAgents

/Library/LaunchDaemons

/Library/LaunchAgents

The responsible file may or may not be obvious. Post the contents of those three separate folders if you wish. I will examine them and provide instructions.

That app is old and as far as I can determine no longer supported. Its uninstallation instructions probably no longer work even if you can find them. Presumably, you already looked for it in Applications.

Reply

Answer 2

Oct 23, 2020 8:53 AM in response to Colin Cohen

Synium Software (Germany) offered a now discontinued product known as CleanApp in versions 3, 4, and 5, with the latter supporting 10.8 - 10.14. The CFBundleIdentifier for this product is com.syniumsoftware.CleanApp which pkgutil may detect. Use the previous pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i com.syniumsoftware.cleanapp Terminal command to see if it still exists.

The actual location of the CleanAppDaemon is here:

/Library/Application Support/CleanApp/CleanAppDaemon.app/Contents/MacOS/CleanAppDaemon

And the plist (com.syniumsoftware.CleanAppDaemon.plist) that is launching that application may reside in one or more of these locations:

/System/Library/LaunchAgents
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Library/LaunchAgents
/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Users/yourname/Library/LaunchAgents
/Users/yourname/Library/LaunchDaemons
/Users/yourname/Library/Application Support/CleanApp

I also suspect from the installer contents that this application may also install a kernel extension that contains synium, or cleanapp in the extension name.

/System/Library/Extensions

Reply

Answer 3

Colin Cohen Author

Level 1

65 points

Oct 23, 2020 12:18 PM in response to VikingOSX

That exposed quite a bit - three files there:

which I'll put on my Desktop, and restart, in case deleting it reveals other horrors.

Currently the daemon is using 12Mb, but a short while back it was 80Gb+, and while typing it went up to 37Gb, it seems most erratic!

Thanks so much for the diffing,

Cheers, Colin

Reply

Answer 4

John Galt

Level 10

146,684 points

Oct 22, 2020 8:50 AM in response to Colin Cohen

93 GB, ok. That's a lot of memory. Exhausting 24 GB of memory is impressive. Leave it to "cleaning" junk to do that.

The file that launches the process is probably not hidden. Look for it in these three separate folders:

~/Library/LaunchAgents

/Library/LaunchDaemons

/Library/LaunchAgents

The responsible file may or may not be obvious. Post the contents of those three separate folders if you wish. I will examine them and provide instructions.

While you're at it rid of "Sophos". Rule 1 of Macs is don't install junk. Follow its uninstallation instructions.

Reply

Answer 5

Oct 22, 2020 9:29 AM in response to Colin Cohen

Maybe the CleanAppDaemon left a calling card about its installation locations. Copy and paste the following in the Terminal to see if you can find its package reference:

pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i cleanappdaemon

If there was a named package result with that application's name in it, copy and paste that entire string to the clipboard, then:

pkgutil --files $(pbpaste) > ~/Desktop/cleanappdaemon.txt

This will write a list of installed file paths for this application on your Desktop. You can QuickLook this text file while you are removing the remaining items.

Reply

Answer 6

Colin Cohen Author

Level 1

65 points

Oct 23, 2020 3:45 AM in response to Colin Cohen

Thank you all three. Time will tell if the suggestions have worked as the issue while really annoying with a 94Gb memory hog it is only intermittent. But 94Gb is a lot if you 'only' have 24Gb as I remember when 256kb extra was a lot [of RAM and £/$/€]!

In order of emails, at /Library/LaunchDaemons I found com.macpaw.CleanMyMac-setapp.Agent [I thought I'd got rid of CleanMyMac] long ago and com.malwarebytes.HelperTool [ditto].

In Terminal 'pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i cleanappdaemon' did not produce what I think you hoped for:

Last login: Fri Oct 23 10:03:47 on ttys000

Colins-iMac:~ CC$ 'pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i cleanappdaemon'

-bash: pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i cleanappdaemon: command not found

Colins-iMac:~ CC$

Finally, I did not need Findanyfile as I realise I had EasyFind and it found com.syniumsoftware.CleanAppDaemon.plist containing Library/Application Support/CleanApp/CleanAppDaemon.app in ~/Library/Preferences/. I don't think the contents of a plist can do any harm, unless there is something to read it. Anyway, I've trashed the plist and assume anything that needs it will recreate it. plist attached.

I run Sophos, but did not know they had a first rule!

Thanks, Colin

Reply

Answer 7

Oct 23, 2020 7:22 AM in response to Colin Cohen

Colin,

You will note that the pkgutil examples that I posted had no single quotes surrounding the command, and your example, which you indicate did not work, has single quotes around the command. That is why it did not work for you. Lose the single quotes which cause the shell to issue the command not found error.

Reply

Answer 8

Colin Cohen Author

Level 1

65 points

Oct 23, 2020 7:29 AM in response to Colin Cohen

Thanks, no idea where the quotes came from as I did a copy/paste.

However this time the result was:

Last login: Fri Oct 23 11:28:09 on ttys000

Colins-iMac:~ CC$ pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i cleanappdaemon

Colins-iMac:~ CC$

so I assume whatever it might have found has gone, except just after my last post cleanappdaemon appeared in Activity monitor, puting the RAM into the red but not causing a problem and I did a force quit. When I can leave my Mac I'll do a restart incase something is still in RAM.

Cheers, Colin

Reply

Answer 9

Colin Cohen Author

Level 1

65 points

Oct 25, 2020 10:40 AM in response to John Galt

Thank you all again. I waited to see how things stabilised after removing a raft of files and restarting.

The latter was painfully slow, with a spinning beach ball after the Desktop photo appeared, but before the p/w entry box. It took about 10 mins, even with some SSD and initially Activity Monitor was deeply in the red, more so than ever.

It showed a lot of start-up apps not responding even when they were, but has now settled down with a fraction less RAM showing as used than before, as it should be.

I'm still getting stuff hanging, including Finder, but it seems to sort itself out.

Thank you again, CC

Reply

Answer 10

BDAqua

Level 10

245,501 points

Oct 22, 2020 12:37 PM in response to Colin Cohen

Find Any File...

http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/index.php

Hold Option or alt key when selecting Find to Find All.

Reply

Display hidden files in Spotlight search results?

Similar questions