Iamawesome997

Q: Best clean up utility for Mac OS X?

Hi everyone,

Recently, there have been two OS X clean up utilities for which I've been getting ads for.

They are:

-CleanMyMac 2

-MacKeeper 2012

 

I want to know which is better.

Thanks.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3), 13" Entry level model, uses an SSD

Posted on Mar 28, 2013 4:18 PM

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Q: Best clean up utility for Mac OS X?

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  • by MadMacs0,

    MadMacs0 MadMacs0 Oct 10, 2014 11:57 AM in response to Steve McRea
    Level 5 (4,791 points)
    Oct 10, 2014 11:57 AM in response to Steve McRea

    Sounds like you picked up some adware along the way.

     

    Visit TheSafeMac's Adware Removal Guide for help in identifying and eliminating it.

  • by bryrsmith,

    bryrsmith bryrsmith Nov 3, 2014 1:44 PM in response to Iamawesome997
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 3, 2014 1:44 PM in response to Iamawesome997

    Link, you say not to download any of the "crap," but then say that OmniDiskSweeper is helpful. Can you explain, please?

  • by MadMacs0,

    MadMacs0 MadMacs0 Nov 3, 2014 1:54 PM in response to bryrsmith
    Level 5 (4,791 points)
    Nov 3, 2014 1:54 PM in response to bryrsmith

    bryrsmith wrote:

     

    Link, you say not to download any of the "crap," but then say that OmniDiskSweeper is helpful.

    I'm reasonably certain that Linc (note spelling) is no longer monitoring this year and a half old thread and you replied to the OP rather than he, so I'll take an educated guess at what he's trying to impart.

     

    The "crap" he refers to is software that either modifies your OS, deletes files or changes preferences in accordance with it's view of how things should be instead of yours. OmniDiskSweeper is totally passive. All it does is give you information about your drive that you can then use to decide what to do about it. It won't make any modifications, leaving that up to your judgement on where to start freeing up additional space, if necessary.

  • by bryrsmith,

    bryrsmith bryrsmith Nov 3, 2014 2:26 PM in response to MadMacs0
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 3, 2014 2:26 PM in response to MadMacs0

    Thanks for the info. I did find something that certainly seems worthwhile: Adware Medic, from thesafemac.com. It identified several adware programs on my machine and, with a click, removed them.

     

    P.S. Note that judgment is spelled without an "e." As for replying to the original post, his comment, oddly, did not have a reply button directly under (as is now the case when I re-logged in.)

  • by MadMacs0,

    MadMacs0 MadMacs0 Nov 3, 2014 3:23 PM in response to bryrsmith
    Level 5 (4,791 points)
    Nov 3, 2014 3:23 PM in response to bryrsmith

    bryrsmith wrote:

     

    Thanks for the info. I did find something that certainly seems worthwhile: Adware Medic, from thesafemac.com. It identified several adware programs on my machine and, with a click, removed them.

    That app is written by a colleague of mine and I recommend it here quite frequently. Linc, on the other hand, will tell you that you don't have to download anything to remove adware and gives manual instructions for taking care of such issues. His philosophy is why download something recommended from an anonymous internet source when that's what got you in trouble in the first place. I understand his point, but having been involved in the development of AdwareMedic and it's predecessor the Adware Removal Tool, I have complete faith in what it does and have never run across any indication of it's harming anything.

    Note that judgment is spelled without an "e."

    Actually, both spellings are acceptable and depending on what dictionary you look in both are shown as preferred. Even Yosemite's spell check agrees with that.

  • by thomas_r.,

    thomas_r. thomas_r. Nov 4, 2014 3:47 AM in response to bryrsmith
    Level 7 (30,889 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 4, 2014 3:47 AM in response to bryrsmith

    bryrsmith wrote:

     

    I did find something that certainly seems worthwhile: Adware Medic, from thesafemac.com. It identified several adware programs on my machine and, with a click, removed them.

     

    Keep in mind, though, that AdwareMedic is not a "clean up utility" such as the programs being discussed in this topic. It doesn't purport to speed up your Mac, increase free disk space, etc. It has one job and one job only: removing adware. If you don't have any adware installed, it won't do you any good at all (though it shouldn't do you any harm either).

  • by chris_h_,

    chris_h_ chris_h_ Feb 25, 2015 9:49 PM in response to Iamawesome997
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 25, 2015 9:49 PM in response to Iamawesome997

    Just to weigh in – I actually found MacKeeper pretty useful when my old MacBook was running out of room. It generally scanned/cleared a GB or two with no issues every time I used it, and I haven't had any Adware issues.

     

    However... BEWARE!

     

    I also used its 'find duplicates' feature which again was handy, but I think I may have deleted ALL my photos from the last ten years


    Need to have a proper look, am hoping it's just an issue with iPhoto not knowing where the actual files are... gulp.

  • by petermac87,

    petermac87 petermac87 Feb 25, 2015 10:23 PM in response to chris_h_
    Level 5 (7,402 points)
    Feb 25, 2015 10:23 PM in response to chris_h_

    No, it's MacKeeper. Not iPhoto. MacKeeper identifies important data as junk and eliminates it. You photos may well be unrecoverable now. Hopefully you have a backup.

     

    Cheers

     

    Pete

  • by MadMacs0,

    MadMacs0 MadMacs0 Feb 25, 2015 10:59 PM in response to chris_h_
    Level 5 (4,791 points)
    Feb 25, 2015 10:59 PM in response to chris_h_

    chris_h_ wrote:

     

    I may have deleted ALL my photos from the last ten years

    Certainly possible. iPhoto always duplicates photos that are opened for editing, even if you don't make any changes to them, but the original is always retained in case you ever want to revert your edit. Since I've never used MacKeeper I don't know how it or you decided which was the duplicate, but it likely corrupted the index so that even if one copy of each photo is still around, it's lost to iPhoto now.  The same thing can happen with music libraries and e-mail that isn't managed by iTunes and your e-mail client. Apple maintains a database for each file and when the file goes missing without being removed from the database, things go South in a hurry. You've now stumbled across one of the main reasons I recommend to all users that they never use any type of Cleaner app. I did it once when Monolingual first came out and it took three weeks to replace all the apps it disabled.

  • by thomas_r.,

    thomas_r. thomas_r. Feb 26, 2015 3:47 AM in response to chris_h_
    Level 7 (30,889 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 26, 2015 3:47 AM in response to chris_h_

    chris_h_ wrote:

     

    I actually found MacKeeper pretty useful when my old MacBook was running out of room. It generally scanned/cleared a GB or two with no issues every time I used it

     

    Just to point out, the files that MacKeeper was "cleaning" were not junk files... which is why they kept coming back and it kept removing them. Using an app like MacKeeper to "clean" your hard drive is never an appropriate solution when your hard drive is filling up. It just made the problems worse, prompting you to keep running it, which of course made you feel that it was doing something. The real solution was for you to manually remove some of your files or apps to clear some space, or to upgrade the hard drive if you couldn't do that.

     

    Sorry to hear about the loss of your photos... hope they're backed up. This isn't particularly unique to MacKeeper, though... any of these "cleaning" utilities have frequently been known to delete things they shouldn't have.

  • by PaulEnfield,

    PaulEnfield PaulEnfield Mar 7, 2015 1:40 PM in response to Linc Davis
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 7, 2015 1:40 PM in response to Linc Davis

    Hello

    Thanks for all this info on things to do and avoid.

    Since macs are targetted more and ùmore what about anti-viruses?

    And I'm thinking of the free ones.

    Should I use Sophos or antivast?

  • by petermac87,

    petermac87 petermac87 Mar 7, 2015 1:43 PM in response to PaulEnfield
    Level 5 (7,402 points)
    Mar 7, 2015 1:43 PM in response to PaulEnfield

    No, as there are no viruses to detect.

     

    Pete

  • by Allan Eckert,

    Allan Eckert Allan Eckert Mar 7, 2015 1:49 PM in response to PaulEnfield
    Level 9 (53,462 points)
    Desktops
    Mar 7, 2015 1:49 PM in response to PaulEnfield

    You certainly don't want to use either of those until you are interesting in causing your Mac to have problems. Those two are a couple of worst being right up there with Norton.

  • by thomas_r.,

    thomas_r. thomas_r. Mar 7, 2015 2:02 PM in response to PaulEnfield
    Level 7 (30,889 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 7, 2015 2:02 PM in response to PaulEnfield

    Using anti-virus software really doesn't give you much benefit, and is likely to cause you a lot of problems in return. Avast in particular is probably the worst choice you could make, and although Sophos used to be good, it has been implicated in causing some issues lately. If you must install anti-virus software for some reason, the only thing I would currently recommend is ClamXav.

     

    For more information, see my Mac Malware Guide.

     

    (Fair disclosure: I may receive compensation from links to my sites, TheSafeMac.com and AdwareMedic.com.)

  • by danafromprovincetown,

    danafromprovincetown danafromprovincetown Mar 31, 2015 7:10 AM in response to thomas_r.
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 31, 2015 7:10 AM in response to thomas_r.

    Its hard to know whats what out there. Especially with sites like CNET running pages like this.    http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-clean-and-speed-up-mac-os-x-mavericks/

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