Is CleanMyMac safe for Mac?

CleanMyMac is a legit app.

I wouldn't call it safe unless you consider the indiscriminate deletion of files from your Mac as being safe.

CMM is in a class of apps that are unnecessary and unneeded on the Mac.

These would be cleaning, optimizing, security, anti-virus and VPN softwares. All unnecessary and very often causing more problems than they purport to prevent because they conflict with the macOS’ built in securities. If you have this type of app installed, you should uninstall it according to the developer's instructions, and use best practices when using your Mac.

If you want to keep your Mac secure, follow this guidance:

• Keep your macOS and other software up to date.
• • Don’t click links in email.
• • Don’t download apps from unknown websites.
• • Don’t disable your Mac’s built in security.

❝Rule 1 of Macs is don't install junk.❞ – Galt.

For more info, please see these support documents:

• Effective Defenses Against Malware - Apple Community (Thanks, John Galt!)

• Avoid phishing emails, fake 'virus' alerts…and other scams - Apple Support 

• Apple Personal Safety User Guide - Apple Support

Be careful. I am not sure, if CleanMyMac has been improved recently, but I tested earlier trial versions n a test account and there were several issues.

• It destroyed my Photos Library be removing the high resolution originals and replacing them incorrectly by the edited versions. This resulted in a loss of quality and Photos could no longer edit the affected photos.
• Also the CleanMyMac cleaned recklessly caches needed by the system. The Mac was very slow, until all caches had been recreated. As a result my videos did no longer play, because one cache could only be recreated by reinstalling the system.

Apple used to have a knowledge base article advising against the use of third party cleaning apps. This document is still available on the way back machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20190408220612/https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204968

If you need to get rid off duplicate photos use only safe third party application, that are using the program interface of the Photos.app to delete the duplicates and are not modifying the the library package om´n their own.

it is safer not to waste money on paying for cleaning apps and better to invest the saved money into buying the devices with more storage.

And if you absolutely must make a spring cleaning because you are running to od´f storage, at least make a full backup, before you let any cleaning app touch your Mac.

macbookguy12 wrote:

It deletes files I don't use/cache and it frees up space on my mac and like what's my mac tempature, ram usage.

Unfortunately, it also sometimes deletes files that are critical to the system or operations. And it is difficult to uninstall; you can’t just delete the app because it leaves a lot of detritus in the Library.

For managing storage you can use the built in storage manager (Menu/More Info/Storage) that will show all storage sorted by content size, or the free app OmniSweeper that works similarly.

And there’s no benefit to clearing cache, because MacOS will free it if additional space is needed.

I can't speak to just how apps earn featured placement like that in the App Store, but I have suspicions.

I do know from my own past use of the CMM app that trouble ensued because of it. I had photo library and cache issues exactly as our friend, @Iéonie, describes as their own. It took some time and effort to resolve.

And I see the many posts by other users regarding their own problems and the eventual findings linking CMM to those.

So, an app gets exactly one chance not to break my stuff before I dump it. Never again.

CMM provides no function that the macOS cannot or does not do itself. It's just another garbage app.

Every unnecessary application (no matter how innocuous they seem) installed on a computer (Mac, Linux, Windows, or other) represents a risk. That risk can be an outright infection, increased attack surface, privacy invasion, system instability, system incompatibility, data loss, information stealing, or any number of other risks. Therefore, every application installed on a computer must be weighed as to its utility vs. risk. In the case of this application, you can find hundreds of posts from the smartest and most experienced community members that clearly state that this application and others like it don't meet any reasonable criteria for being useful. But then again, we now live in a world where facts and experts are cast aside and ignored.

AI now allows attackers to discover vulnerabilities in software orders of magnitude faster than ever before. AI is also allowing supply chain attacks to compromise dozens or hundreds of software applications at a time overnight. And lastly there are many companies already going all in on AI based on the fallacy that vibe coding produces anything but unmaintainable junk code. The next few years are going to be an awakening for uninformed technology users that litter their devices with dozens or hundreds of low-quality useless apps that are ticking time bombs of security and privacy.

It's therefore more important than ever that technology users learn that the security of their devices is more dependent on the apps that are not installed than the ones that are. The most secure Mac or iOS device is the one that is just out of the box, fully updated, but with no 3rd party applications installed. If an operating system has a native application or functionality then those should be used unless there is a significant need for a replacement. That of course is not always practical so it's up to the end-user to choose very wisely those quality applications that meet their additional needs.

Therefore, the choice is yours. Do you need an app that an entire community of experts say to avoid?

Samuel-F wrote:

I think there is one that says that your app is useful but you cannot say that it's useless since it can still give you like ram and storage usage

So can MacOS without CMM. And MacOS, as a Unix-based operating system, can manage RAM better than any 3rd party product. There seems to be the misguided belief that freeing RAM by moving app segments to virtual memory is somehow “good”. Actually, it is very bad, because it interferes with the MacOS virtual memory management, and can significantly slow down your computer, and significantly increases swapping, which isn’t good for SSD storage and can make your Mac crawl.

That's like apps that can test wifi or ssd speeds... Clean my Mac is not an app that you need, since it doesn't has malware and can be used for something, it's available on the App Store... But we do not recommend it.

Samuel-F wrote:

It should be safe since it’s recommended by the Mac App Store BUT

To be sure, Apple does not "recommend' CleanMyMac.

MacPaw, the developer of the app, uses the marketing phrase "Notarized by Apple" to suggest that somehow Apple endorses or recommends the app. They do not. This is at least a little misleading and I believe MacPaw knows that. It's one of the marginally shady ways they market their useless app.

About notarizing macOS software: Notarizing macOS software before distribution | Apple Developer Documentation

Sorry my friend regarding BrickMyMac appearing on the Apple Apps Store

Any Third Party Applications that will interfere with the normal operation of the OS,  is an invitation for disaster. 

Certain Applications like CleanMyMac maybe available on the Apple Apps Store - this only means the Developer is prepared to pay Apple a percentage on each sale. 

What the Application may do to the computer is up to the User to check this out before purchase

Any of the below should be removed as per Developers Instructions 

Disk Cleaner 

CleanMyMac , aka “ BrickMyMac “

Samuel-F wrote:

I think there is one that says that your app is useful but you cannot say that it's useless since it can still give you like ram and storage usage (Ik there is a menu bar thing that can give good info)

You don't need a third-party app to do that.

or can even help to find old files...

Using it for that is exactly what has gotten a lot of people into trouble. They don't understand exactly what they're looking at and end up deleting things that they don't really want deleted.

it's just useless..

Yup

macbookguy12 wrote:

and like what's my mac tempature, ram usage.

You don't need CleanMyMac to check RAM usage. Activity Monitor does that job.

Furthermore, it is important to understand that a large Cached Files number is not bad. RAM that is completely idle is RAM that is not doing anything for you at the moment.

So macOS will put a lot of available RAM to use holding cached files.

• If it needs the cached data before it needs the RAM, there is a performance benefit because the Mac doesn't need to go to a SSD or hard drive to get the data. (Even SSDs are slow compared to RAM.)
• If it needs the RAM first, it just dumps some of the cached data. (After all, the original still exists on disk, and can be fetched later if needed, even if more slowly.)

The key things that tell you whether your Mac has enough RAM for the workload it has been running are (1) the color-coded (Green/Yellow/Red) Memory Pressure graph, and (2) the Swap Used. You want to see Green, and zero or small Swap Used.

Activity Monitor User Guide for Mac - Apple Support

As for temperature, if I thought I needed to monitor that, I would look for a utility that just does that job.

It should be safe since it’s recommended by the Mac App Store BUT

It might delete unwanted files !

It’s mostly useless, even if you free up some storage by cleaning some cache, it will come back again… please let macOS manage everything !

So yeah it’s useless, can be harmful and waste of time 🙂

Actions, on the part of the User ( you ) when using ( BrickMyMac ) will have consequences that may not always be immediate.

When these repercussions eventually emerge, they are often unexpected.

You will wish you had never installed and used CleanMyMac

Yes the only thing I mean is that it won’t completely break your mac, it doesn’t have virus but it can delete unwanted files and it’s useless

There are two schools of thought when dealing with CleanMyMac aka “ BrickMyMac “

The steps in #1 below is predicated on the Offending  Application has been Removed as per the Developers Specific Instruction 

# 1 Some Contributors suggest restarting in Recovery Mode and choosing to Reinstall the Operating System over the existing installation. 

This may or may not replace elements of the  Home Folder ( User Account )  and replace any corrupted or removed elements and make things right.

#2 - Then there are Other Contributors ( like myself ) would suggest  from this link Use Disk Utility to erase a Mac with Apple silicon.

For Intel computer >> Use Disk Utility to erase an Intel-based Mac followed by How to reinstall macOS

Thereafter to start from scratch and install all Required Applications directly from the Apple Apps Store or Directly from the Developer.

If going this route - I suggest Not using Startup Assist to migrate things back as this will probably Re-Introduce the existing  issue at the time TM Backup was made