how to clean my hard drive

They are all crap and you do not need to clean an OS X drive like you do in windows.

If your Hard Drive is more than 75 or 80% full, then simple delete or move some of your crap off of it.

MacKeeper is among the worst, but as den.thed said you should not install ANY scam "cleaning" programs.

Merely removing files is not going to speed up the computer noticeably unless the startup volume is very close to being full. In that case you would be getting "disk full" alerts. If you do need to to delete files, there's no way to do it automatically. Please describe the actual problem, if you have one, in as much detail as possible without making any assumptions about what's causing it or how it should be solved.

Here are some general tips to keep your Mac's hard drive trim and slim as possible

You should never, EVER let a conputer hard drive get completely full, EVER!

With Macs and OS X, you shouldn't let the hard drive get below 15 GBs or less of free data space.

If it does, it's time for some hard drive housecleaning.

Follow some of my tips for cleaning out, deleting and archiving data from your Mac's internal hard drive.

Have you emptied your Mac's Trash icon in the Dock?

If you use iPhoto or Aperture, both have its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.

If you store images in other locations other than iPhoto, then you will have to weed through these to determine what to archive and what to delete.

If you are an iMovie user, iMovie has its own individual Trash location that needs to be emptied, too!

If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!

Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive to disc, flash drives or external hard drive, older emails you want to save.

Look through your other Mailboxes and other Mail categories to see If there is other mail you can archive and/or delete.

STAY AWAY FROM DELETING ANY FILES FROM OS X SYSTEM FOLDER!

Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.

Again, archive to disc, flash drives, ext. hard drives or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.

Look in your Applications folder, if you have applications you haven't used in a long time, if the app doesn't have a dedicated uninstaller, then you can simply drag it into the OS X Trash icon. IF the application has an uninstaller app, then use it to completely delete the app from your Mac.

To find other large files, download an app called Omni Disk Sweeper.

http://www.omnigroup.com/more

Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.

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

When you install and launch it, let it do its initial automatic tests, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run the maintenance tabs that let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.

Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.

move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.

If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be archived or moved, also, to the optical discs, flash drives or external hard drive and then either archived to disc and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.

Moving iTunes library

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449

Moving iPhoto library

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2506

Moving iMovie projects folder

http://support.apple.com/kb/ph2289

Good Luck!

I am having a similar problem. My hard drive is only 1/4 full. My macbook is two years old, surely it should not be this slow. It takes a few mintues to open programmes, shut them down, save documents etc. Do you have any suggestions to what might be slowing it down?

Awesome info Michel.

Thanks for taking the time to post all the links, etc.

<3

Pia