what is the best mac utility or application to "clean" my macbook pro?

You. No software is needed. Just manually go through your files in the Home folder and delete those you don't need.

Online ads as you describe are scams and should be ignored. Do not click any links nor dial any phone numbers.

Freeing Up Space on The Hard Drive

1. See Lion/Mountain Lion/Mavericks' Storage Display.

2. You can remove data from your Home folder except for the /Home/Library/ folder.

3. Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on freeing up space on your hard drive.

4. Also see Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk.

5. See Where did my Disk Space go?.

6. See The Storage Display.

You must Empty the Trash in order to recover the space they occupied on the hard drive.

You should consider replacing the drive with a larger one. Check out OWC for drives, tutorials, and toolkits.

Try using OmniDiskSweeper 1.8 or GrandPerspective to search your drive for large files and where they are located.

Everything needed to keep your premium-quality Mac in perfect condition was included in the box it shipped in except one thing. A drive onto which to store your Backups (the Utility to do the backups was included).

You do not need ANY third-party add-ons to maintain your Mac. If any of these Utilities were any good, they would need no advertising.

How to safely use MacUpdate to download malware-free software:

This site has both free and paid membership accounts. If you have neither then some software will be distributed as an installer wrapper that includes adware/malware you may not want. Such a download may appear on your computer like this: Firefox Installer.dmg. Delete the download and return to the main site where you will find a direct link to the developer's website. Use that link from which to download the software.

To avoid such downloads from MU just create a free membership account. Log into your account prior to using the site. This will avoid the installer wrappers and downloading adware or malware. I continue to use their site without any problems.

If you prefer not to create a membership account then note that on the download page under the price box will be the link to the developer’s site. Use that link and download the software directly from the developer circumventing the use of MU altogether.

<Edited by Host>

A

One or more links have been posted in this thread to the "macupdate" website. Do not follow the links, and never download anything from that site. It intentionally distributes OS X malware by packaging some free applications in an unnecessary and malicious "installer."

All software should be downloaded directly from the developer's website or from the App Store. Don't trust any site such as "macupdate" that aggregates download links.

B

Any software that purports to automatically "clean up" or "speed up" a Mac is a scam, no matter where it comes from.

Read OS X El Capitan: Increase disk space

I keep getting online ads for "Cleaning my Mac" and wonder whether there is an apple utiity that should be used and if not which is the preferred app.

Do not install "cleaning" products. Excerpted from Effective defenses against malware and other threats:

Never install any product that claims to "clean up", "speed up", "optimize", "boost" or "accelerate" your Mac; to "wash" it, "tune" it, or to make it "shiny". Those claims are absurd.

• Such products are very aggressively marketed. They are all scams.
• They generally operate on the flawed premise that a Mac accumulates "junk" that needs to be routinely "cleaned out" for optimum performance.
• Trial versions of those programs are successful because they provide the instant gratification of greater free disk space.
• That increased space is the result of irreversible destruction of files, programs, or operating system components normally protected from inadvertent alteration or deletion. The eventual result will be unreliable operation, poor performance and random crashes that may not become evident for months or even years after their use, when updates to programs or OS X are eventually released.
• Memory "cleaners" that circumvent OS X's memory management algorithms work by purging inactive memory contents to mass storage, which can only result in degraded performance and accelerated hardware failure.

Do not obtain software from questionable sources either:

Never install pirated or "cracked" software, software obtained from dubious websites, or other questionable sources.

• Illegally obtained software is almost certain to contain malware.
• "Questionable sources" include but are not limited to spontaneously appearing web pages or popups, download hosting sites such as C net dot com, Softonic dot com, Soft pedia dot com, Download dot com, Mac Update dot com, or any other site whose revenue is primarily derived from junk product advertisements.
• If you need to install software that isn't available from the Mac App Store, obtain it only from legitimate sources authorized by the software's developer.

There are a lot of replies telling you that it is not necessary to acquire a program to clean your Mac, and they are absolutely right.

However, if you are like me and enjoy the feeling of having a nice, clean, fresh laptop, with no duplicate files, unnecessary programs, and left-over files post-uninstall, then I recommend 'CleanMyMac 3'. You can purchase / download a free version here: http://http://cleanmymac.com.

Before you go installing third-party apps, be sure that it is what you want. They come with their benefits, however for MacBooks, such apps really are not too important. You can clean your Mac yourself, though third party apps (such as the one suggested) do that little bit extra, such as removing excess files after uninstall. It also contains a feature which allows you to free up a little more RAM. I use it, and it is great, but I do not NEED it. Needless to say, I remove around 300MB of data each time I use it. That must count for something.

Before installing CleanMyMac3 as recommended in this thread, search these communities using the search engine located at the top right of this page for CleanMyMac. The results of the search should give you a good indication whether or not you should install CleanMyMac3.

My recommendation is to not install any third party tools that claim to clean your computer.

At best "cleaners" slow down the computer looking for things to do, but breaking nothing.

At worst "cleaners" can gut OSX, removing things that are critical. Then you need a backup made before the "cleaner" starting breaking things, or to start over with a new install of OSX.

innovation sherpa

Please be aware that this site does not permit advertising. If you should encounter a reply that appears to be advertising a product or service it is incumbent upon you to exercise judgement and decide for yourself whether the individual posting it is motivated by financial or other compensation. If the post does not directly advertise a product, but the individual derives financial or similar benefit by referring you to that product, an appropriate statement is required to be included.

All Mac "cleaning" products including "CleanMyMac" are designed for one and only one purpose: to take your money, whether or not they are "free". If they corrupt up your Mac now or at some point in the distant future, that is irrelevant to their true purpose.

BobTheFisherman is absolutely right; sorry that I forgot to mention that. Be sure to look around for reviews for whatever product you wish to choose.

John Galt also has a very good point, which is the reason for my second response.

I would like to confirm that I have no affinity with 'CleanMyMac'. I would also like to reconfirm that I do not recommend purchasing (or obtaining for free) any third party App which claims to clean your laptop. MacBooks are world-class products for this reason - their built-in capabilities render third-party Apps unnecessary. I use CleanMyMac only because I got it for free from work, so why not? I also only use it to free up my RAM - a thing easily done manually by simply visiting your Activity Monitor. Moreover, your problem is with your browser, and not your Mac. A cleaning App will do nothing to remedy your pop-up problem.

So, really, your best option is to do nothing. If the pop-ups are persistent, consider reviewing your cookies for the browser you are receiving the pop-ups on. Delete them regularly. You could also take a look at the ad-block apps supported by Apple by simply visiting your toolbar at the top of your laptop now, and clicking 'Safari > System Preferences', and have a look around the Apple website to see what they have.

I hope this helps!

You can free RAM by stopping applications. And you do not run questionable software just because "I get it free from work" ... it is still bad software.

Well its 'bad'ness is evident by the problems that I have experienced, of which there are none.

It is not 'bad' software, it is just unnecessary software. However it does its bit, even if it is to save me only a couple of seconds every time I want to free up RAM.

It was also confirmed to me that the App is safe to use for such purposes from one of the Genius engineers at my local Apple store. I agree, many of the Apps are bad, but regarding the App in question, you cannot make assumptions such as "questionable" and "bad" based on the fact it is third-party.

hi iv heard and used in past daisy disk which the full one u buy for just a few quid from the apple store and theres another one too

which is omni disk sweeper but when using it it totally wipes your mac so like passwords and other stuff you may have on

so just be carefull but i tell u iv had mine back a few times in past to a local tech store that has computers macs ipads tablets u name it and

had to send away to the work shop else where but when got it back still same problem

only thing i wanna do to mine is to try n boost my usage from 121gb to maybe 500 are something

i use externals but they dont do much

except keep my stuff on

ye cos iv tried omni disk sweeper and clean my mac in past and it just totally wiped my macbook pro and files where lost from a gig i did and also like

emails i use and passwords i use too and i had re connect stuff too

and down load some stuff

but i have a mid 2014 macbook pro 13in retina and for ever having storage usage problems too

keep temted and investigating a bigger ssd but i cant afford and other suitable ssd ie from transcend i belive isnt suitable

except one wich is that card reader type thing which only goes up to is it 256gig are something ??

then have to use a external card reader ??

but going through some info i use google chrome but if i went to safari and deleted what evers there in history could delete that too n free up more space which i may do

but theres this app that clears other language usage too which really it didnt do much but said it did free up more storage but from having

121gig ssd and 8gig memory i know where my ssd is but dont know where the memory is it said i had like 74 point something gig left

which seems pretty silly then theres some google apps i need to delete but dont know how to do it tried going to the apps but but dont show in apps on the finder bit