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hajime

macrumors G3
Original poster
Jul 23, 2007
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Hello, I read some articles saying that this app could make the Mac run faster and delete useless files. It is good in practice? I worry that it might delete important user and system files.
 
Hello, I read some articles saying that this app could make the Mac run faster and delete useless files. It is good in practice? I worry that it might delete important user and system files.

No. 100% no. Don't download it. Just avoid any clean/speed up applications. Same advice applies for Windows.

OS X looks after itself. If you feel your Mac's running slowly, these apps won't help. Post here and we'll run some diagnostics.
 
I've been using clean my mac for a while now. Started using it since version 1, and have purchased the subsequent versions since. Never had any issues with it. Do you absolutely need it? No of course not but I do find it pretty useful. It's very handy for some things like resetting applications (my favourite feature for troubleshooting), removing languages you'll never use. The mac is pretty good at looking after itself so isn't needed, but I do enjoy using the app for some things.
 
The only similar application I use on my Mac and Windows computers is CCleaner because it's light and not filled with malware like CleanMyMac is, and I am telling you that from experience rather than speculation.
 
The only similar application I use on my Mac and Windows computers is CCleaner because it's light and not filled with malware like CleanMyMac is, and I am telling you that from experience rather than speculation.

Clean my Mac doesn't have malware in it. You may be getting it confused with Mac keeper which is advertised every where and is a very horrible piece of software. Clean my Mac is good, and works a treat. Been using it for years now. Can confirm it doesn't have malware.
 
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CleanMyMac still encourages users to ‘optimise’ their Mac performance by clearing out Spotlight indexes, databases and old logs and it still removes important system caches, which is an absolute no-go. It pretends to know better than Apple and third-party developers by pulling the rug under their feet. The fact that the program has a long list of workarounds for programs that don’t quite work with their magic sauce is proof enough. Just reading their website gives me a stress line. Stay away from this, you don’t need it.
 
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I found CMM useful and did speed up my ageing iMac. Maybe at a cost, as mentioned, but with nothing I noticed. Still, not really required for newer versions of OS X.
Now my favorite free macOS software utilities are:
Ccleaner - light and quick, consolidated access to OS X native functions.
Etrecheck - quickly check for old stuff slowing things down and bottlenecks.
Adware removal by malwarebytes- have been good earlier, now purchased by new company, not sure how good it is now...
 
If you use macOS Sierra, most of the "beneficial" features of these programs have been added, including cleaning out old caches and keeping track of abandoned files. As others have stated, these types of programs do these harmless things, but they also clean out caches and databases that are needed for your computer to function quickly and correctly.
 
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Not really to my surprise, but on the Mac you really do not have to do a lot of maintenance.
Almost all of these cleaning up, speeding up, anti virus, this and that apps .. They're all just really bad, cause trouble, harder to uninstall than usual, require root password for some reason .. and change ownership a lot more than any other company.

Dodgy stuff, they're on the same list as MacKeeper etc. I consider them to be the virusses to the mac and never recommend any of these to mac users.

Just empty your trash, uninstall some apps you don't use anymore. And go through your data manually like your docs, your pics, your vids, your download folder. And clean it up manually a bit once in a while.

Getting rid of some log files will give you a couple megs, ont 500 ..
Cleaning up some cache files just means (in my book) that they will be rebuild next time and that's just performance hit again. You can just leave it alone and let the apps deal with them.
 
If I upgrade to macOS Sierra, will I certainly gain an improvement in system performance?
 
I want safari off my computer...I downloaded it due to a misinformed lecturer and dont need it anymore anyway since I finished my diploma...it keeps giving me bong which sucks and bing brings trove which sucks even harder....
 
Not really to my surprise, but on the Mac you really do not have to do a lot of maintenance.
Almost all of these cleaning up, speeding up, anti virus, this and that apps .. They're all just really bad, cause trouble, harder to uninstall than usual, require root password for some reason .. and change ownership a lot more than any other company.

Dodgy stuff, they're on the same list as MacKeeper etc. I consider them to be the virusses to the mac and never recommend any of these to mac users.

Just empty your trash, uninstall some apps you don't use anymore. And go through your data manually like your docs, your pics, your vids, your download folder. And clean it up manually a bit once in a while.

Getting rid of some log files will give you a couple megs, ont 500 ..
Cleaning up some cache files just means (in my book) that they will be rebuild next time and that's just performance hit again. You can just leave it alone and let the apps deal with them.

I used the uninstall function of Clean My Mac successfully to uninstall Clean My Mac. Fun that this worked without a hickup... ;-)
 
No. 100% no. Don't download it. Just avoid any clean/speed up applications. Same advice applies for Windows.

OS X looks after itself. If you feel your Mac's running slowly, these apps won't help. Post here and we'll run some diagnostics.
My Mac runs slow, outlook crashes. Apps take too long to open. What, other than Clean my Mac, can I do?
 
You can tell us what Mac you have, how old (the year it was made), what OS...
21.5 inch 2017 2.3 GHZ Dual core intel core 15. macOS Catalina. It was slow before Catalina. Purchased 2-3 months ago.
 
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