What is the best 'cleaning system' for the Mac?

Glad to hear that! If you will do a search here for the product you recommended, you will find that a) it is not recommended and b) it has caused various problems and c) the only people recommending it are usually affiliated with that company.

Also, you might want to read Linc Davis' last post (right above yours).

Thanks - its good to be reminded of what should be common sense. I would like to share this my family and friends as being the most well-rounded rant I have ever come across.

That's it? You dug up a 10 month old topic just to post a snarky remark?

To someone who has never used a computer before, or hasn't had one very long, there is little about using and managing a computer that is "common sense". It takes time to learn how to efficiently use such a device, and learn what to avoid.

Given the serious tone of your reply I can see why you think its snarky. In response I have used all kinds of computers for over 40 years, its good to be reminded that new OS releases have some serious thought to operational efficiency and not additional features to make old hardware redundant. You just saved me $50 on CleanMyMac - it reminded me that I have a serious photo problem and that I need to pull out a manual and understand whether I can delete the originals imported to iPhoto (apart from the backups of course). Also I need to do some serious decision making about some of the clones of my virtual windows machines and snapshots. Maybe I need to make up my mind about whether to stick with Parallels or Virtualbox, thereby allowing me to discard versions of machines that had software and development environments that are way out of date and I would never have to maintain. You post prompted me to remind myself I am treating the symptoms, not the cause.

Thanks for the clarification. You lost me with "well-rounded rant", which made your initial post sound as if you were treating Linc's post as looking down on the average user's intelligence.

it reminded me that I have a serious photo problem and that I need to pull out a manual and understand whether I can delete the originals imported to iPhoto

If you have years of photo images tied up in iPhoto, it's probably too late to make this suggestion as it would require a tremendous amount of time and effort on your part to switch the way you handle your images. But if not, you may want to consider Media Pro or Adobe's Lightroom. Both of which catalogue your images, but don't squirrel everything away into a huge, monolithic folder of images. Put your images wherever you want (external drive, CD - DVD or Blu-ray disks, etc.), import them as thumbnails, and the app remembers where they are. Need the high res? No need to export it out of iPhoto to get at it. Just mount or open the media it's on.

The former is what I've used for years. I currently have 48,000+ images catalogued in it, and the database for that still only takes up a bit over 2 GB of space. That's pretty small considering how many thumbnail images that covers. Sample shot of one page:

You can assign numerous preset tags to the images for searching, and create as many of your own as you want. Lightroom of course does pretty much the same thing, but now has the subscription drawback. That's a darn big minus. Stop making monthly payments, and you can no longer use or access your image catalogue.

Lightroom of course does pretty much the same thing, but now has the subscription drawback. That's a darn big minus. Stop making monthly payments, and you can no longer use or access your image catalogue.

Lightroom has always been available as a one off payment for the perpetual licence, in addition to the subscription based service, its available from Adobe or Amazon.

Bob Pinkston wrote:

I Use "Cocktail". Cocktail is the product, the company is "Maintain". It really works, cleans out your Cashe's,

It's certainly useful for cleaning out your cash all right.

Yes, for the older CS6 version. You can still get most (if not all) of the CS6 titles, but it's unknown how long Adobe will continue to sell them.

Yes, for the older CS6 version. You can still get most (if not all) of the CS6 titles,

There is no such product as Lightroom CS. There are two licence types; Lightroom (perpetual licence) and Lightroom CC (Creative Cloud).

I referred to Adobe Lightroom, not to any CS application.

The current version of Lightroom (perpetual licence) has been updated regularly throughout this year, upgrades are issued annually.

Lightroom CC is updated on a more regular and immediate basis.

but it's unknown how long Adobe will continue to sell them.

Its unknown how long Adobe will continue to sell any product, until they make an announcement.

That's good to know then, Gary. What I had read from supposedly reliable magazine sources were that Lightroom was tied to the same upgrades as the CS, and now CC apps. I always did wonder why the perpetual license box was called Lightroom 6 and not CS6.

Adobe does that with Acrobat Pro, too. It's on a completely separate update/upgrade schedule from the rest of the main products, and can still be purchase as a perpetual license. You aren't forced into the CC subscription service to get the latest version.

I'm hoping that someday Adobe will ditch this subscription thing and go back to normal (okay, traditional) licensing.

Although I know better, I almost went down the rabbit trail and bought a utility. Thanks so much for talking me off the cliff. I've been a mac user for 20 years and have never needed to do any of this stuff, why should I start now?!? Thanks again for a very thorough, compelling post.

Linc Davis, THANK YOU. This is the most helpful free advice I've ever received from these boards. I am grateful to you.

I have had Disk Warrior in my toolchest for 15 years and have never regretted it. It does in fact fix directory damage that Disk Utility gags on.

I must concur with Kahjot that Disk Warrior is a valuable tool. I have used it for years and it has repair disk directories that were not repairable by any other means.

Yes. DiskWarrior is one of those apps you need to pull out like twice in your lifetime. But when you need it, you sure are glad it's in your toolbox.