The best way to clean up my mac?

[TobyLondon]

Hello people...

I made the switch to mac about 6 months ago and I'm kicking myself I didn't do it sooner! I've figured most things out just by trail and error...however, i'm having trouble finding the best way to keep my powerbook running smoothly; I regularly clear my safari cache but thats about it!...are there any "temporary" folders i can clear? ...i've found my free space diminishing without installing any new apps?...help?

Any advice would be much appreciated!!

Thanks,
Toby

 

[mad jew]

If you restart the machine, does the lost free space reappear? It may just be an accumulation of virtual memory. As for temporary files, I wouldn't bother. If you have Tiger and you only ever sleep your machine (as opposed to shutting it down overnight), your logs will be automatically cleaned regularly.

Of course, the free space may be lost through regular use too - accumulation of files, unneeded apps etc.

 

[ham_man]

Everytime I download a large update to my computer, I run OnyX (usually the scripts, the optimization, and most of the cleanup options) to clean up my Mac. Has worked well for me so far. I'd try it out...

 

[Stecchino]

Two apps that I recommend.

• 1. Macaroni
• 2. OmniDiskSweeper

Macaroni($8.00) and Onyx (free), as far as I can tell, do some of the same things but Macaroni is completely automated and works 100% in the background. Macaroni performs all the maintenance tasks to keep things running quick and smooth when the computer is idle and you can also schedule it to regularly delete localized files (foreign language files) that you'll likely never need. Over the last 18 months of using it I've saved several GB of space from the localized removal stuff. There are tools out there to do what Macaroni does but none of them automate it and are so "under the hood" as Macaroni. I actualyl don't know why Macaroni isn't integrated directly into Mac OS X by default, it's that good.

OmniDiskSweeper (free) is such a simple but useful tool that automatically "sweeps" your hard drive and sorts everything (including hidden files) by file size so you can within moments identify where all of your space goes. You'll probably be surprised at how many hundreds of MB or GB you save by downloading this free tool. For example, most people have 2 GB of printer drivers installed on your computer. I understand the convenience of just plugging anything into your Mac, but if your short on space they've got to go.

 

[mad jew]

These 'cleaning' apps are a bit of a pet hate of mine. The Mac will automatically take care of most of the cleaning for you but these apps let you clean manually too. This is great, but the downside is that these apps are consequently quite powerful and give the user the ability to make some changes to their systems that they may regret.

If you use one of these apps, don't run any commands unless you know what they are and what they do. It'd suck if something important was accidentally deleted. FWIW, I don't use any of these third party apps as I don't feel I need them.

 

[Stecchino]

...This is great, but the downside is that these apps are consequently quite powerful and give the user the ability to make some changes to their systems that they may regret...FWIW, I don't use any of these third party apps as I don't feel I need them.

Actually, Macaroni will not make any changes to your system that you'll regreat. It simply automatically repairs disk permissions, removes localized files (and if you only ever use one language on your Mac, you'll never miss these), and does the basic UNIX maintenance that is recommended, nothing harmful.

As for OmniDiskSweeper, just use some common sense. If it finds some large files in the System folder of some hidden files that don't even have legible names, it's probably isn't anything you want to mess with. But when you find 2 GB of printer drivers you'll never need or 500 MB of GarageBand demo songs, that's the beauty of this app.

 

[TobyLondon]

wow, thanks for all the advice! ...this sunday i think i'll sit and have a look a some of those programs. I use Protools for mixing things i bring home from the studio so I've just removed Garageband as I never really used it and the demo songs take up a fair slice!