Can I clean up Mac by doing a Time Machine Recovery

Those leftover files from things no longer installed probably occupy much less than 1% of your space and don't impact the speed. What will impact it are extensions and software that load and run at startup and in the background, software that is constantly working with or trying to update things in the cloud, as well as a disk that has less than 15% free. Also, a spinning mechanical drive means a computer runs much slower. Do you have a mechanical drive (versus an SSD)?

Other things to watch for include anti-virus, security, "optimizer" software, clean my mac etc. These have been known to impact performance.

You could erase your drive and reinstall Big Sur, and then migrate from your Time Machine backup only user files, no applications nor settings. Then reinstall only software you need, one or two at a time, to test for slowdowns, etc. However this is fairly intrusive to do and your backup must be reliable. Having two or more backups would be good to have before embarking on something like that.

jhyieslame wrote:

So, if I decide to go the external drive route, is there a way to access my user folder on the internal drive or should I just go thru the process of recovering from TM without the apps and put everything on the SSD?

And external disk is kind of a best-case scenario here. You don't have to involve Time Machine at all. You can just install the operating system on the external disk. When you setup your user account make sure to give it both the same name and same short name as your old user account. Setup your account as a new one with iCloud, etc. Then, just copy your old documents from the old hard drive to the new disk. Then see how it runs.

If you are missing any absolutely required 3rd party apps, you can just reinstall them. If there is any problem, you can just abandon the whole idea and go back to your original boot drive and try something else. But if the computer runs dramatically better, then just keep going and erase the old disk eventually.

However, I haven't seen your EtreCheck report so I don't really know if this is the ideal solution or not. There could be some other, completely fixable, problem with current configuration. Lots of people run from an external drive to test new operating system versions. There are always complications when doing something funky like this. But those complications can be far less severe than upgrading the boot drive and finding out there is some insurmountable software conflict.

Yes, Find Any File can help in removing leftover components of apps that have been deleted. Do the following:  

#1 - boot into Safe Mode according to Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support. 

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

#2 - download and run the shareware app Find Any File to search for any files with the application's or the developer's name in the file name.  For CleanMyMac software you'd do the following search(es): 

1 - Name contains total

Any files that are found can be dragged from the search results window to the Desktop or Trash bin in the Dock for deletion.

FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.  

#3 - reboot normally.

Move your content to a new Mac and just be sure to only move selective thing from the Time Machine Backup - not Applications for sure.

User wrote " On a related question, Etre Check says I am running Total AV along with my Mac protection. While it is true that at one time, I ran Total AV, I have uninstalled it and I have gone thru their manual uninstall process and removed all of the support files that should be there, but it still says I am running that product. Any idea how to remove whatever is causing this line in the report? "

Have read about this App and seen a Very Senior Contributor @ Old Toad recommend this App called Find Any File (FAF)

Have not personally used it so proceed with caution on the Word Selection

jhyieslame wrote:

do you know if it's possible to remove the Fusion drive and replace it with an SSD?

Possible? Yes, but fraught with peril. If this is a recent iMac, it is easier, cheaper, and less risky to just get an external Thunderbolt 3 drive and use that as your startup drive. Sometimes iMacs can be quite slow, even new ones.

On a related question, Etre Check says I am running Total AV along with my Mac protection. While it is true that at one time, I ran Total AV, I have uninstalled it and I have gone thru their manual uninstall process and removed all of the support files that should be there, but it still says I am running that product. Any idea how to remove whatever is causing this line in the report?

That's difficult to say without seeing the EtreCheck report. According to the EtreCheck report posted in another thread, TotalAV is now using a system extension. You won't be able to manually remove that. There is a slim chance that you might be able to reinstall the app and remove the system extension that way. I don't know if the official "manual uninstall process" is correct. That sad fact is that many Mac apps don't have uninstallers and sometimes their uninstallers don't work.

What you would have to do is reinstall the app and then drag only the app from Applications to the trash. Apple has a new, built-in uninstaller for system extensions. When you drag the containing app to the trash, the operating system will then remove the bundled system extension. But if you use an uninstaller, that might not happen correctly. You would think that an antivirus company selling "market-leading endpoint protection against zero-day threats" would actually know how to properly remove their own software, let alone malware. That isn't always true. And I'm not even talking about TotalAV in this case.

That being said, since the system extension is tied closely to the app, and your system is already jacked up, the built-in uninstaller may not work properly. There is a method to remove system extensions but I think it still requires disabling system integrity protection. It definitely requires using the Terminal. You might be better off wiping the drive.

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