Is the app "clean my Mac" by Macpaw safe to use?

It is considered malware by many experience users on these forums. OS X does not require any cleaning, antivirus or third party maintenance apps. All that is needed to keep OS X safe is a little common sense.

The common sense part!

• Never use a torrent site to download.
• If you receive an ad, pop-up, e-mail or phone call advising your computer has been compromised, this is a SCAM only intended to take your money.
• Keep OS X up-to-date. NOTE: Apple has ceased development of security updates on OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8, if you want to keep OS X up-to-date consider upgrading to Mavericks 10.10.x.

Hi Michel,

I just read this thread since my mom downloaded clean my mac and got us in this pickle. Can you please tell me how I can manually clean off the mac so as to avoid this malware issue. I will of course delete the cleaning program as well. Sorry, I am a beginner. This might seem intuitive to most, but again I'm a beginner.

Thanks in advance.

That application shouldn't be used.

(127653)

Don't touch it. You don't need it. It will do more harm than good. The same goes for any other application claiming it will 'clean up' your Mac or improve performance. They are all crap.

There are a very few exceptions, however, those need to be used with great care and are really nothing more than a GUI front end to standard UNIX utilities that are already built into OS X.

I’ve used it before. It works, but it causes problems at times. Usually when you can least afford complications.

How are you cleaning up memory? Did it get dirty? First assess what it is that you think you are fixing.

Did you get Cleaner with bundled software? (That’s the most usual source–at least you didn’t pay full price).

You can selectively throw away cache files with Washer & CleanMyMac, etc. Not sure there’s enough space gained to make it worthwhile.

They all tell you that they have saved you Gigs of space, but how that was accomplished is often dicey.

Similar to deletions of shared software components on the Windows side registry: it might take out something that was not needed for an app you don’t use & decide to chuck, because it may turn out that component was shared with another application, so you wind up screwing up that other keeper application.

Some of the other things these utilities do:

Read up before you try to optimize a drive: A journaled drive can get muddled if you optimize it.

The fact is - many of these utilities have pretty interfaces, but give you almost no clue what they actually did.

Some give you a graphic wrapper over Unix command line functions, or access hidden functions the OS is capable of, like adding double arrows to your scroll bars. Its like a huckster telling you that you had gout, or cancer, but now its all gone, all cured... that’s why you are healthy...

Some of those features may be differently supported in the next OS update, or are largely useless in your work flow.

Like late-night infommercials that offer to solve problems you never knew you had:

Know what you think you are fixing before trying to fix it.

DO NOT USE ANY SO CALLED APPS CLAIMING TO "CLEAN", "OPTIMIZE" OR "SPEED UP" YOUR MAC!!!! EVER!!!!

Apps like MacKeeper, MacSweeper or any other maintenance apps like CleanMyMac 1 or 2, TuneUpMyMac, SpeedUpMyMac, MacCleanse or anything like these apps, installed on your Mac, while they appear to be helpful, can do too good a job of data "cleanup" causing the potential to do serious data corruption or data deletion and render a perfectly running OS completely dead and useless leaving you with a frozen, non-functional Mac.

Plus, these type of apps aren't really necessary OR needed. They really aren't.

There are manual methods to clear off unnecessary data off of your Mac that are safer and you have complete control over your Mac and not just leave a piece of auto cleaning software in charge of clearing off data off of your Mac. Their potential of causing OS X issues outweighs the implied good and benefits these types of hard drive or memory "cleaning" apps are written to do.

These types of system 'cleaning" apps are very poorly written and are really a scam to rob newbieand novice Mac users of their hard earned cash for a poorly written maintenance program that will do much more harm to a perfectly normal running OS X system than the good that the app developers purport these types of apps will do.

Plus, the software companies that write these apps make it hard to easily uninstall these apps if something DOES go wrong and these apps work in a way where you have no recovery or revert function to return your Mac back to its former, working state in the event something does go wrong.

It is best to never, EVER download and install these types of apps.

The risk to your system and important data is too great a risk!

If there is serious damage possible:

Then they really probably should not sell these on the app store!

And reputable application vendors should not bundle them.

I have to believe that the concerns are not quite as dire as some make out if its still available on the appstore.

Cleanmydrive from MacPaw is there (but not Cleanmymac) & MacCleanse is there.

Going so far as to define it as malware - I’d like to hear how.

Nevertheless, if you can’t define a need for the app, then research it before deciding based on sales pitch alone.

If the Apple user manuals were a little more explicit about what’s needed & what is not, there would be no confusion (assuming anyone reads them).

Sesrch these and all Mac and OS X related forums on these Apple Communities on both MacKeeper and CleanMyMac and similar apps.

You'll see first hand what these apps are capable of doing to a perfectly normal running Mac.

You will find out quickly that these apps are less than useful, at the very least, and serious malware/garbageware, at best.

There are better, more controlled ways of cleaning out data detritus out of Mac than using one of these automated style "cleaning" apps.

Do your due diligence and research these before you post any more of your opinions on these types of apps.

Many of the regulars here,myself included, have seen the system issues, problems and damage these types of apps cause and it leaves the user with no other way to recover from such system damage other than to do a backup of all of a user's important data and do a complete hard drive erase and clean install of whatever OS X version they were running and doing a complete reinstall of all of their previously installed third party apps.

All thanks to the "usefulness" of apps like CleanMyMac.

These types of apps appear in the Mac App Store, primarily, becuase they are apps that work without installing any system hooks and extensions into the main OS X system folder.

This is one of the prerequisites of being able to allow an app to be sold and available/downloadable from the Mac App Store.

An app in the Mac App Store is NOT allowed to install anything into the main OS X system or system kernel.

This is one of the reasons you do not see antivirus software being sold in the Mac App Store other than something like ClamXAV which doesn't install anything into the main OS X system folder and hence, allowed to be sold and downloaded from the Mac App Store.

This fact, however, doesn't mean that these apps can't do its dirty work by using other application code that works outside of the OS X system to do its possible damage to a user's system.

The only thing Apple says that is needed in terms of maintenance on a Mac is backing up. And that's mentioned on each update in the readme. Since you read the manual, I'm sure you've noticed that. Nothing about cache cleaning. Nothing about prebinding. Nothing about ds_Store cleaning. And as has been mentioned, just because it is on the App Store doesn't mean it is any good. Removal directions for MacKeeper are here:

http://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3036

In the meantime if you see such system cleaning Apps on the App Store, please give them scathing reviews, and remind people, the only maintenance they need is a good solid backup plan.

I have to believe that the concerns are not quite as dire as some make out if its still available on the appstore.

I wouldn't have anything like it within 10 miles of my machines. My opinion is based on a) one of those worthless wares hijacking my Yahoo inbox and redirecting me to a site telling me I had 8,943 viruses (it took me 5 hours to resurrect my Mac) and b) several years of trying to help people regain control of their messed up machines caused by these useless wares. And, just because something is available does not mean that it is endorsed; the app store is a just an online store selling all sorts of apps and Apple takes in a certain percentage of the sales.

Cleanmydrive from MacPaw is there (but not Cleanmymac) & MacCleanse is there.

If I remember correctly, those were there for a little while before they were pulled.

Have a read here:

what is better macKeeper of clean my mac 2

https://macpaw.com/support/cleanmymac/knowledgebase/how-to-uninstall-cleanmymac- 3