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How to find files that either shouldn't be there or are eating up memory

Hi,

I download a lot. (I have 12 TB external and I've used it all -- several times.) I'm afraid that at some point I must have downloaded something I shouldn't have, as my computer has gotten slower and slower over the year. Is there a way to find out what has been added to my OS/computer that wasn't in the orignial instal?

Also, is there an easy to follow tutorial that explains the the data generated in the Activity Monitor? (The CPU might show 94% idle, the System Memory 12 of 16 GB free, and Disk Activity, Disk Usage, and Network all at the very low end of the usage bar, but it still takes a bit of time to process my requests.) I'd like to better learn how to trouble shoot on my own.

Thank you much,

OSX 10.8.2

1TB

16GB

2.8GHz Corei7

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.1)

Posted on Feb 11, 2013 12:09 AM

19 replies

softwater

Level 5

5,556 points

Feb 11, 2013 7:04 AM in response to stevenfromyokohama

Triple-click the following line to select it:

/Library/Application Support/CleverFiles

Hold down the 'control' key and from the menu choose 'Services > Reveal'

Hold down the 'command' key and press 'delete' (or 'backspace' if on a full size, non-mac keyboard).

Enter your Admin password and press 'OK' to send the folder and all its contents to 'Trash'.

Do NOT empty the Trash.

Restart the mac and log in to your normal account.

Make an exact note of any error messages that appear before dismissing them (there may be no error messages, but if there are they will give us clues as to where else to look for the remnants of the Disk Drill.app).

Open Activity Monitor.app and search for 'cfb' in the filter bar again. Does 'cfbackd' appear now or not?

Feb 11, 2013 7:24 AM in response to softwater

All done. There were no error messages and it didn't show back up in the AM. I use AppTrap and it puled the files associated with the CleverFiles.

Hopefully this will speed things up. :-)

Thank you, so much!

softwater

Level 5

5,556 points

Feb 11, 2013 7:32 AM in response to stevenfromyokohama

Since we've uninstalled this in a rather unconventional way,it'd be a good idea to repair the system permissions in Disk Utility.app. To do so,

1. open the Disk Utility.app (type 'Disk' in Spotlight and hit 'return')

2. click on the volume name of your startup disk (something like 'Macintosh HDD') - not the physical disk name at the top

3. Click 'Repair Permissions' button at the bottom of the panel.

Do not be concerned about the error messages that arise, so long as none of them are in red.

4. When it finishes, quit Disk Utility.

Going forward, if you see the spinning 'rainbow' wheel for long periods, the trick is to open AM as quickly as possible and see what's at the top of that %CPU list. Post back if you need more help with that.

Good luck. 🙂

nickp944

Level 1

8 points

Jun 29, 2015 5:39 PM in response to softwater

Very clear. Very simple. Very effective. Very Apple.

Thanks so much!!

Nick in Florida

How to find files that either shouldn't be there or are eating up memory