Recommended cleaner - not Onyx please.

Yeah all these Apple experts can never be wrong. 🙂

Iv'e been suing Onyx with the last 6 OS operating systems (since 2007) and it's never caused a 'problem'.

This is as useless a thread as I have seen. No discussion. Just monologues, talking past one another. He says, she says, he knows, she knows.

onyx does some things very well, and Macs aren't perfect. So as useful, save the verbiage, the truth lies inbetween.

What a surprise.

I used Onyx as late as last evening. It made boot up much quicker and other functions as well. As some of the other responders mention, get some sense of what you're doing when you're using it. Also, treat all Onyx warnings and caution messages as VERY IMPORTANT.

itsmesunny wrote:

clean themselves?

then what is onyx etc. for?

There are two concepts that a lot of computer users confuse together. Maintenance ("cleaning"), and troubleshooting.

Years ago, there were some maintenance routines that were a good idea to to. Over the years, Apple has improved OS X so that newer versions can do those routines automatically. Some old users may keep thinking you need to run maintenance programs, but newer Macs don't need them.

Onyx and others are good for troubleshooting, though. If there is something not quite right with the Mac in a certain area, like fonts, Onyx and other utilities can sometimes have tools that can help, like rebuilding the font cache. But those actions are not normally needed under typical use.

Onyx and similar utilities have another function: Customization. They provide access to many features that are not exposed in OS X's own preferences, like how fast you want sheets to appears or setting the location and format for how you want screen shots to be saved. But again, that is not "cleaning."

So there you have it. Onyx is not really needed for maintenance. It is used for troubleshooting and customization.

Just use your Mac normally and it will take care of itself. The only thing a user really needs to remember these days is to keep around 20% of the hard drive empty so that there is room for temporary files and other operational and self-maintenance routines like swap files, auto-defragging, and local Time Machine backups.

I recommend you don't use any of these Cleaner programs. All they seem to do is mess up OS X. OS X takes care of itself as far as cleaning out older cache files and the like. As to other files on your system you do that manually by either not creating files you don't really need or deleting file you no longer want.

Ccleaner for Mac, but it's chiefly used after Internet use and doesn't do the system caches like OnyX does.

https://www.piriform.com/mac/ccleaner

Also it's not complete, more features cost money.

OnyX is free and is very well recommended and has been so for a long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnyX

If your having a bug issue with 10.8.4, then contact the developer so it gets worked out.

http://www.titanium.free.fr/forums.php?sid=24aecec8f578ebf4619d7f211f6fa01b

itsmesunny wrote:

clean themselves?

then what is onyx etc. for?

Mac's do some background maintainence by themselves, but they don't clean the Internet data or corrupted caches.

CCleaner + OnyX usually does the trick.

With OnyX one has to download the correct version for their operating system.

If 10.8, then hold control key and click on the app, select "Open" to bypass Gatekeeper if needed.

Network 23 wrote:

Onyx is not really needed for maintenance. It is used for troubleshooting and customization.

It can be used to clean the caches of unwanted Internet data as well, if it's used after Ccleaner.

Onyx didn't work after I updated to Yosemite so I downloaded the most recent version, but it wouldn't open because I didn't get it from the App store. App Store doesn't have it. I looked here for help and learned that I can run apps not purchased in the App store by holding down Control and clicking on the app. Works great.

Just mentioning that reading these questions sometimes helps in unexpected ways!

I've been using Onyx for several years now - IMHO the best and easiest way to 'maintain' a mac for optimum start and run.

I run it approx monthly OR after installing several 3rd party apps.

I've witnessed it on many occasions (not just my mac) reducing boot times to login and desktop by half.

I still use it today.

Since the Nineties I've used Tech Tool Pro versions 4-9 by MicroMat Inc. I was impressed at how this company came out with Drive X when Apple turned a new direction in their professional savvy to reconstruct Unix. If anyone is as reliable as these guys; then my history of five generations of Macs is worthless. But me call out, I firmly believe no competitor can top their experts on a technical level. Try Tool Tech Pro 9 and see for yourself.

Best Wishes,

Algaefarmer

Macs clean themselves. No software needed. Exactly what do you want to "clean?"

For folks that do not know that Macs clean themselves and/or do not feel like doing it themselves manually. You still did not tell us what you want to "clean."

Also, I am running Mac OSX 10.5.8 folks.

OS X 10.4/10.5 need to upgrade, 10.6.8 ok still

http://www.titanium.free.fr/downloadonyx.php