Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Then, once you've downloaded Onyx make sure to delete it right away and never use any cleaner application ever again. They do more harm then good and are utterly useless and pointless in both macOS and Windows.
 
Last edited:
Then, once you've downloaded Onyx make sure to delete it right away and never use any cleaner application ever again. They do more harm then good and are utterly useless and pointless in both macOS and Windows.

Ehh, I disagree, CCleaner does a pretty good job of clearing out unneeded cache files and whatnot, especially on Windows.
 
"unneeded cache files" may be an oxymoron...CCleaner may be the dogs on Windows but this is OSX, I have <never> removed a single cache file in 7years of continuous usage, OSX simply doesn't need it. But if you really want your system to have to needlessly recreate cache files you delete then go right ahead.
 
  • Like
Reactions: vkd and mj_
Ehh, I disagree, CCleaner does a pretty good job of clearing out unneeded cache files and whatnot, especially on Windows.
There is no such thing as an "unneeded" cache file. macOS and Windows clean out their cache directories by themselves once the files have become stale but what CCleaner, Onyx, and others do is to claim to have deleted unnecessary stuff to make themselves appear useful and important when in reality deleting cache files slows down the system significantly. They exist for a reason, and deleting them is pretty stupid.
 
There is no such thing as an "unneeded" cache file. macOS and Windows clean out their cache directories by themselves once the files have become stale but what CCleaner, Onyx, and others do is to claim to have deleted unnecessary stuff to make themselves appear useful and important when in reality deleting cache files slows down the system significantly. They exist for a reason, and deleting them is pretty stupid.

This. macOS is designed to manage its own caches. If these tools were necessary, does anyone really think Apple wouldn't have been capable of baking cache management into its own systems?

The 'Mac Cleaner' type apps have long been a scam by people and companies who noticed that if you delete a cache, you can report to the user that the system now has more free storage (hurray!)... for a few hours until the OS wastes CPU cycles rebuilding that cache up again. Nothing more than a con to pray on people who don't really understand how their computers work beyond using them day to day.

The one exception is Windows which does an awesome job at filling its registry with rubbish from leftover programs and then running into issues down the road. Even then, I think I'd rather a fresh install of Windows every so often rather than running a 'cleaner' on it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: vkd
There is no such thing as an "unneeded" cache file. macOS and Windows clean out their cache directories by themselves once the files have become stale but what CCleaner, Onyx, and others do is to claim to have deleted unnecessary stuff to make themselves appear useful and important when in reality deleting cache files slows down the system significantly. They exist for a reason, and deleting them is pretty stupid.

That is true that cache files are created for a reason. However, macOS really is not that great at automatically deleting old caches that are no longer used. Also caches can become corrupt and cause issues with their related program.

Have you ever seen or heard of a Mac that shows a huge amount of storage is taken up by "System" or "Other"? About 3 out of 5 times that is caused by cache files that are not being handled properly by the OS.

Also CCleaner is good for uninstalling applications that don't have their own uninstaller and for some apps works better to uninstall than the actual uninstaller for that program.

CCleaner can also remove language support for languages besides your default language for your device.
 
That is true that cache files are created for a reason. However, macOS really is not that great at automatically deleting old caches that are no longer used. Also caches can become corrupt and cause issues with their related program.

Have you ever seen or heard of a Mac that shows a huge amount of storage is taken up by "System" or "Other"? About 3 out of 5 times that is caused by cache files that are not being handled properly by the OS.

Also CCleaner is good for uninstalling applications that don't have their own uninstaller and for some apps works better to uninstall than the actual uninstaller for that program.

CCleaner can also remove language support for languages besides your default language for your device.

And yet, running over 7yrs, such cache cleaning is not required. I'd trust OSX to manage caches <it> created rather than some 3rd party app that has no idea. Yes if I look there are some trivial traces of old programs no longer installed. Wow.
 
And yet, running over 7yrs, such cache cleaning is not required. I'd trust OSX to manage caches <it> created rather than some 3rd party app that has no idea. Yes if I look there are some trivial traces of old programs no longer installed. Wow.

I personally have never had any issues with caches either. With that being said I have actually seen apps like CCleaner make a big difference in system performance and storage. And some apps leave behind quite a large amount of data.

Also you seem like you're being kind of snarky little guy, really no need for that mate.


EDIT: When I say never had any issues with caches I want to state that I meant storage issues. I have had issues where a corrupt cache has prevented an application from working correctly and remove that programs caches from the hidden library resolved the issue.
 
I personally have never had any issues with caches either. With that being said I have actually seen apps like CCleaner make a big difference in system performance and storage. And some apps leave behind quite a large amount of data.

Also you seem like you're being kind of snarky little guy, really no need for that mate.


EDIT: When I say never had any issues with caches I want to state that I meant storage issues. I have had issues where a corrupt cache has prevented an application from working correctly and remove that programs caches from the hidden library resolved the issue.

You assume too much.

So are you basing your recommendation entirely on its performance on Windows, and fixing problems such as with caches that you have never had? The value of a forum is to bring personal experience. My personal experience is over 7yrs on several Macs I have never needed a cleaner app. As others have posted they can cause problems and bluntly removing caches and freeing up space, but causing the OS to have to rebuild them isn't a positive experience. But YMMV.
 
You assume too much.

So are you basing your recommendation entirely on its performance on Windows, and fixing problems such as with caches that you have never had? The value of a forum is to bring personal experience. My personal experience is over 7yrs on several Macs I have never needed a cleaner app. As others have posted they can cause problems and bluntly removing caches and freeing up space, but causing the OS to have to rebuild them isn't a positive experience. But YMMV.

I never mentioned anything about Windows. I was referring to macOS specifically. And this is from personal experience. My personal Mac has had very few issues. However I service Macs for a living and troubleshoot between 10 and 25 Macs a day so I think I have a bit of experience with Macs and how they work.

Note: I have been using several Macs for over a decade. You and I have clearly had different experiences. Its just like when people say that iOS updates ruin their iPhones. Well in the 8 years I have been using iPhones I have never had any issues like that. So different people have different experiences.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Super Spartan1
But I agree, we shall leave it at that

original issue is CCleaner has changed how it powers up

just a thought:
it took development cost/time to change this

I am cleaning up the household MAC's and NOT re installing CCleaner
 
If you want to run maintenance on cache and temporary files on a macOS, all you have to do is reboot the machine.
This automatically runs the maintenance program and doing anything else is not recommended.

If you want to clear RAM, then there's a key combination at start up (I think it varies with OS).
You can reset or clear the management controller too which is necessary sometimes if something like the sound stops working.

If you want to check out and delete unnecessary programs, then click on the apple logo>about this mac>storage>manage>remove clutter. It will tell you which programs or files you haven't used for a while etc.

I wouldn't recommend doing this sort of thing automatically.

Sometimes, a program doesn't run properly or has become stuck with a setting that stops it from working in which case you search for the 'plist' file, delete it and reboot when mac OS will build another one.

That's about it. I agree with the people above that say anything else is unnecessary, and I've only rarely used the above in 11 years. In older versions of the OS you had to leave the machine on overnight sometimes to allow it to repair permissions and do maintenance but even that isn't necessary any more and you never have to defrag.

I don't think there even is a registry to clean and the OS recompiles itself on boot if I'm not mistaken.

Talking Windows on the other hand- well it is a lot better than it used to be and we don't have the problem with .dll files any more like we used to, but every time you close a Windows computer down without allowing it to shut down properly, you dump the entire OS into a .tmp file so they take up huge amounts of space. You will gradually get hundreds of dead or broken links and non-existant files.

And MS are proud of 'legacy'. It's a really big difference in philosophy.
Apple change everything, write everything from new, dump all the old stuff and we may complain sometimes that this older thing or that won't run, but they give a squeaky clean, light OS with security holes plugged.

MS legacy means that until I think Win8, they still had DOS running in the background and the OS has been patched up with layers on layers on layers, with open sockets, hundreds of outdated printer and screen drivers etc etc.
Hundreds of services that load on start up taking 16gb of memory and turning it into about 2 with services to run dial up modems and fax machines for instance.
This all causes huge problems and it's a devil to sort out when something stops working,but you can probably still run that copy of Tomb Raider you bought in 98.

The best way to clean Windows is to re-install but otherwise, un-installing programs causes more problems than anything so it's best just to leave them. (The old joke about ringing MS help line: the first time they tell you to re-install, the second time they tell you to re-install, the third time they tell you to upgrade.)
The program I have found most reliable for cleaning Windows machines over about 20 years is
jv16powertools. Not a great name but it has never messed anything up even once in all that time and you can really see a huge difference before and after.

But, for your mac, just leave it alone.
 
i un installed CCleaner

(running on macOS 10.14.6) i replaced it with Onyx 3.64 and will likely un install this app too because every time it comes up it asks for administrator privileges

a good is; says it clears the local DNS cache and other internet related items. this is my main requirement for running a cleaner.
Note; all this is running on macOS 10.14.5


is there a MAC version of BleachBit?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.