Best clean up utility for Mac OS X?

Agree with Allan. I used to keep up my upgrades of TechTool Pro and Drive Genius until a couple of versions back. I realized all they did was sit on my drive taking up space. Most of what they do you can do for free using utilities provided with OS X, or with free, or much cheaper third party apps. There are a few things TechTool Pro does that do a very good job slowing your system down and eating up large amounts of disk space if you don't turn them off. And for the most part (like, 99.99999% of the time), you don't need those features anyway.

dwhayman wrote:

What about the new TechTool Pro 8?

I've been a beta tester for MicroMat for many years now, so I'm sure I'm a bit biased, but as a result I'm also thoroughly familiar with it, both good and bad.

It's certainly not a "must have" app to keep around just in case, but if you have some specific needs then it's worth comparing it with similar utilities available today. It is able to repair directory damage that Disk Utility is unable to. DiskWarrior is probably the best such tool for such things, but over the years I've had Drive Genius rescue a disk that none of the other drive utilities I had at the time were able to do. One of the big selling points for TechTool Pro has been the ability to install a bootable eDrive that can be used to run TTP from in an emergency. But Apple now has the Recover HD and several other utilities come with USB thumb drives that can accomplish the same purpose. TTP also has more supplementary tests which are of much lesser importance and as has already been mentioned there are free utilities that can accomplish most all of those and probably not any better than the Apple Hardware Test / Apple Diagnostics.

And I agree that some of the background processes need to be turned off or they will slow your computer down and fill up your drive with deleted files, just in case you later change your mind. Time Machine is probably a better way to solve the latter issue.

I would like to say that the only reason people think they need these utilities is you have too many Mac programmers that don't know what they are doing and as a result you have programs that put their files all over the place. For example, Electronic Arts creates a folder in your personal Documents folder that contains files that logically should go in the preferences folder. Also extensions you installed a long time ago and have forgotten about can cause problems later down the line (CleanMyMac2 found one of these, from the date I had installed it back when Tiger was current and a problem I had had for a while went away)

From the testing I have done of CMM2 and CMM3, I have found them to dangerous enough what they delete that I would not trust them on my Mac.

Recently a friend who swore that CMM told me he was having troubles with his Mac. The first thing I did was to uninstall CMM. This did get rid on many of his problems. In the end CMM had so damaged his system disk drive that we had to completely erase it and install everything again. Much of his data was lost in the process.

t

too many Mac programmers that don't know what they are doing and as a result you have programs that put their files all over the place.

SO the solution for that is another app that every experienced person on this board recommends against? Another app that has demonstrably caused issues for users because it's so badly programmed? The solution to badly programmed apps is a worse one? Yes, that makes sense...

Appreciate all the great insight! When you sit back and think about it, it is maniacal & outright torturous to put ourselves in position to have to decipher through all the garbage out there. Thanks for the detailed info you suggested. I read every word and can officially say I am more informed and feel a little more relived.

shldr2thewheel wrote:

none of them. they are all junk and useless.

Those 2 programs I have had tons issues with - MacKeeper being THE WORST! I wish I could find a program that actually works and not install extra crap or act like a malware!

You can choose from other set of Mac cleaning utilities which are safer and reliable. Among them are CCleaner, Stellar Speedup Mac, Onyx, Washing Machine from Intego.

Hi, sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but can anyone vouch for these apps?

I was this close to purchase app cleaner, but now I'm thinking about not doing it? I don´t want a system full of unused trash files.

Thanks!

Rather then posting to an old thread such as this, it would be better if you read the whole thread in its entirety first.

If you would have done that you would have discovered that it was answered already numerous times.

Williamhd22 wrote:

Clean my Mac is spyware. (apple support)

Well that certainly isn't true, at least it's never exhibited any such characteristics when I've examined it, so whoever told you that is opening up Apple for a nice law suit. It's certainly nothing I would ever use nor have I ever recommended it's use to any user for any reason. Any user that's willing to learn can do everything that it does without paying a cent and will be less likely to damage their OS or other apps by blindly allowing it to arbitrarily "clean" their computer.

You are the one who would be best in cleaning up their own mess. 😉

Hi all,

I am signing off from this discussion (yawn).

Goodbye.

Regards,

Ian.

User Tip.

MacKeeper – Do Not Install

in response to Iamawesome997

The OP hasn't been here for over two years.

Pete

none of them. they are all junk and useless.