How often do you do a "fresh" install

[triplekg]

I have OCD when it comes to operation systems and love a fresh out of the box installs. I purchased a New 15" MBP and don';t like it it's going back so I want to do a fresh install on my other machine.

How often do you guys do it? Any benefits (God I did it once a month in the windows XP days!)

I use Diskmaker a USB and the latest OS Download from apple

 

[ardchoille50]

I perform fresh installs of my Mac minis once every six months or so. I have found that we don't really need to do fresh installs at all unless there is a problem that cannot be resolvd otherwise.

 

[jbachandouris]

I honestly don't think I've ever done a fresh install as all my data is backed up to my Time Capsule. Even when I buy a new Mac, I just bring the data over.

That being said, I have been using betas and think I may consider one in the future.

 

[Sital]

I used to do a fresh install whenever a new OS X version came out. However, I don't think I've done a fresh install since Mavericks, now I just upgrade. I haven't noticed any difference in performance.

 

[triplekg]

just seems snappier when I do.. maybe in my head

 

[chabig]

I don't think I've ever done one on OS X, and I started with 10.0, "Cheetah". I've been migrating ever since.

 

[BenTrovato]

It's snappier for about 10 minutes then things settle back to exactly what they were before the fresh install.

 

[Lappen71]

I went from Leopard to El Capitan without fresh install.

 

[ardchoille50]

just seems snappier when I do.. maybe in my head

I'm not certain it's all in your head, a fresh install will usually clear things out.

 

[bopajuice]

I'm not certain it's all in your head, a fresh install will usually clear things out.

Clear things out? What things?

It's not like MacOS has issues with broken links, DLL's or outdated drivers...

 

[ardchoille50]

Clear things out? What things?

It's not like MacOS has issues with broken links, DLL's or outdated drivers...

You must be new here. Uninstalling an app leaves files and folders behind in ~/Library (no, don't waste our time trying to deny it). I talked to numerous OS X veterans and they tell me that's the way the system works, you have to hunt down stuff and delete it yourself. I spent 13 years using nothing but Linux and the issue is similar there. And, no, I will not use someone's third-party "clean up" app, I only allow installs from the Mac App Store.

 

[clauzzz203]

Fresh install is mandatory for each major release on any product. Also recommended is to fresh install on x.1.x releases.
Other than that (and except Watch since you can't fresh install it), not actually required.

And also this is my opinion only...

 

[MacUser2525]

I have OCD when it comes to operation systems and love a fresh out of the box installs. I purchased a New 15" MBP and don';t like it it's going back so I want to do a fresh install on my other machine.

How often do you guys do it? Any benefits (God I did it once a month in the windows XP days!)

I use Diskmaker a USB and the latest OS Download from apple

Never have done one OSX like any *nix operating usually never needs it. There are no benefits unless you have totally hosed the system somehow with a configuration error you cannot track down in your home directory. Now I do freshly install the OS sometimes then migrate to it with the migration assistant or couple of times have done the in-place upgrade. But the install I have now dates from Feb. 2008 according to the oldest file date I can find on my system which aligns with my first install onto a Intel machine with Leopard.

MacUser2525:~$ ls -l Sites/
total 16
-rw-r--r--  1 MacUser2525  admin   1.1K 22 Jan  2011 favicon.ico
drwxr-xr-x  6 MacUser2525  admin   204B  7 Feb  2008 images/
-rw-r--r--@ 1 MacUser2525  admin   2.9K 22 Jan  2011 index.html
drwxr-xr-x  2 MacUser2525  admin    68B 18 Jan  2011 test/

Sometimes you need to track done the junk left over from an old program and get rid of it as has been mentioned already but that is about all you need to do, no sense losing all that history and tweaks made to the system.

 

[fisherking]

You must be new here. Uninstalling an app leaves files and folders behind in ~/Library (no, don't waste our time trying to deny it). I talked to numerous OS X veterans and they tell me that's the way the system works, you have to hunt down stuff and delete it yourself. I spent 13 years using nothing but Linux and the issue is similar there. And, no, I will not use someone's third-party "clean up" app, I only allow installs from the Mac App Store.

sure, but... let's say you had CS5 on your mac, but no longer. so yes, there are support files left behind. but they're connected to... nothing.

so unless it's about reclaiming that space, those files won't affect the OS. (btw, i remove those sorts of files).

i've done clean installs twice since 1998. no harm in it, but not a necessity either...

 

[Voenix Rising]

I still consider myself somewhat of a "newbie" in the Mac world (7 years more or less), having been a Windows user (and supporting it in an enterprise) since version 3.0 back in the stone age. That being said, one of the things I LOVE about OS X is that you don't have to wipe and reinstall unless you're poking around and royally screw something up. I'm still not versed enough with the bits behind the scenes in the OS to go deleting files that may or may not have been left behind by old software installs, but they don't seem to cause any issues other than eating up drive space.

 

[MacUser2525]

I'm still not versed enough with the bits behind the scenes in the OS to go deleting files that may or may not have been left behind by old software installs, but they don't seem to cause any issues other than eating up drive space.

Anything in the Application Support or Launch Agent directories can be safely deleted. In the launch case you want to use launchctl remove name.of.file.plist first to unload it.

 

[maflynn]

Typically, only when I get a new computer. I used to do it more often, but found it wasn't really needed.

My computer is generally fairly quick today as it was when I first bought it.

 

[weup togo]

I've lived on the same home directory for 15 years, across every pre-release build of OS X, and I always migrate my system from machine to new machine. Since 10.5 or so, the exact same code path is used for upgrade installs as for migrating your data from another volume or machine. 99.9% of the time, there is absolutely no need to start clean on a Mac.

 

[BeefCake 15]

I have it in the very bottom of my low priority list in order to get rid of the left over files that linger on after uninstalling, but I never get around to do it.

 

[Taz Mangus]

I have OCD when it comes to operation systems and love a fresh out of the box installs. I purchased a New 15" MBP and don';t like it it's going back so I want to do a fresh install on my other machine.

How often do you guys do it? Any benefits (God I did it once a month in the windows XP days!)

I use Diskmaker a USB and the latest OS Download from apple

I generally do clean installs on major OS X releases. I split my hard drive into 2 partitions, one for the OS and the other for the user accounts.

 

[ardchoille50]

sure, but... let's say you had CS5 on your mac, but no longer. so yes, there are support files left behind. but they're connected to... nothing.

so unless it's about reclaiming that space, those files won't affect the OS. (btw, i remove those sorts of files).

i've done clean installs twice since 1998. no harm in it, but not a necessity either...

Instead of approaching this via an uninformed avenue, go back and read OP, the original author suffers from OCD. OCD can have a profound effect on one's life and can cause one to act in ways that others may find irrational. After you read and understand the OP, go study psychology.. dealing with OCD not as simple as "letting things go because it won't affect the OS".

 

[bopajuice]

You must be new here. Uninstalling an app leaves files and folders behind in ~/Library (no, don't waste our time trying to deny it). I talked to numerous OS X veterans and they tell me that's the way the system works, you have to hunt down stuff and delete it yourself. I spent 13 years using nothing but Linux and the issue is similar there. And, no, I will not use someone's third-party "clean up" app, I only allow installs from the Mac App Store.

Actually I am pretty new to the forums but question/wonder if "hunting down and deleting stuff" is necessary.

What benefit does deleting unnecessary Library files have on a system other than freeing up a few MB of hard drive space?

I have used and worked with just about every modern operating system over the past 25 years including Linux. The old Windows delete and defrag mentality seems to be a bit out of date albeit may still be necessary on a Windows machine. I am just trying to understand the need to delete unused or unnecessary files in MacOS, and what benefit you might gain.

I only question the idea that doing this will speed up or benefit a system because I am uninformed. Please enlighten me.

 

[fisherking]

Instead of approaching this via an uninformed avenue, go back and read OP, the original author suffers from OCD. OCD can have a profound effect on one's life and can cause one to act in ways that others may find irrational. After you read and understand the OP, go study psychology.. dealing with OCD not as simple as "letting things go because it won't affect the OS".

i was responding to your post. did you not get that? anyway, this is the mac forum, you may want to post on a therapy site...

 

[bopajuice]

Instead of approaching this via an uninformed avenue, go back and read OP, the original author suffers from OCD. OCD can have a profound effect on one's life and can cause one to act in ways that others may find irrational. After you read and understand the OP, go study psychology.. dealing with OCD not as simple as "letting things go because it won't affect the OS".

Are we talking about the need for clean installs or OCD?

 

[triplekg]

I do love windows 10 and use it for gaming and work but man the one thing I've learned about apple is a fresh install
doesn't really speed anything up but does make it seem faster!!!