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CleanMyMac2 - or is there a better program out there?

Voca

Voca

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 3, 2013
46
1
Atlanta, GA
To be honest, I ran the trial version of MacKeeper and I did like it.
But from my research, I found out that it is not the most "kosher" program to keep your Mac clean.
Quote on Quote: "MacKeeper has been described by various sources as highly invasive malware"

So, I came across 'CleanMyMac 2'.
Ran it, liked it, but..... my machine (2011 MBP 2.3Ghz i5 16GB ram) started acting up right afterwards for a brief period of time. Nothing major, nothing which couldn't be fixed with a restart, everything back to normal now.

1. What program do you use, to keep your Mac clean?
2. Anyone else having issues with 'CleanMyMac 2'
3. Any other recommendations on similar software?
 
Voca said:
To be honest, I ran the trial version of MacKeeper and I did like it.
But from my research, I found out that it is not the most "kosher" program to keep your Mac clean.
Quote on Quote: "MacKeeper has been described by various sources as highly invasive malware"

So, I came across 'CleanMyMac 2'.
Ran it, liked it, but..... my machine (2011 MBP 2.3Ghz i5 16GB ram) started acting up right afterwards for a brief period of time. Nothing major, nothing which couldn't be fixed with a restart, everything back to normal now.

1. What program do you use, to keep your Mac clean?
2. Anyone else having issues with 'CleanMyMac 2'
3. Any other recommendations on similar software?
Click to expand...
  • Onyx (free)
  • CCleaner for mac (free)
If you deleted all the kind of cache with CleanMyMac2 it is normal that your machine act up a bit, for example, when I deleted the quicklook cache and I try to browser in my photo collection it freeze one or two seconds, then all the previews appear.
 
CleaMyMac is malware that can result in unbootable systems. CleanMyMac2 is just as bad if not worse. Save your sanity and skip the crap.

You don't need the cleaner apps. Oynx is fine but you don't really need it.
 
You don't need any of those apps. OS X will run fine without those 3rd party maintenance apps. Those apps sometimes delete files that are necessary for OS to operate correctly, is something like this happens you will have to reinstall the OS and it is a lot of work to do in my opinion.
 
In general OS X includes all necessary maintenace scripts, all set up to run automatically.

So you shouldn't use any of these programs. At best they will actually do nothing. At worst... well, use your imagination. :eek:

A lot of people like to perform regular maintenance on their computers, or at least be able to see it happening. These programs are malware that exploit that tendency... they are kind of like trojan horse malware, but passive.

Of course, OS X isn't actually perfect. But if you're trying to solve a particular problem, skip these apps. Post the symptoms here (there are a lot of knowlegeable and helpful people on MR) or in the Apple support forums.
 
I recently purchased a copy of CleanMyMac 2 it and I am pretty happy with it. I was able to get a coupon so I saved 20%; it's still a relatively expensive program. I tried a full version prior to purchasing it and I liked it so I decided to support the company.

It removed around 6 GBs of stuff from my '11 Mac Book Air, mostly language packs. Maybe this was something that Onyx could do but the very little I messed with Onyx kind of worried me. I feel that Onyx could cause more damage to a system if you mess with the wrong thing.

Maybe CleanMyMac2 removed some important files that I am just am not aware of at this point. I've also used CCleaner but even after running it CleanMyMac2 still found 6 more GBs of stuff it felt were safe to remove.

As far as it containing malware that is something I did not know about. I will need to run a malware scan to see if anything shows up.
 
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I would not recommend using CleanMyMac or any of its variants, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much. Here's a recent example. While you may not have experienced problems yet, enough people have that it's wise to avoid it, especially since there are free alternatives that have better reputations, such as Onyx.
​
You don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Most only remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space, with the risk of deleting something important in the process. These apps will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space. In fact, deleting some caches can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt. Many of these tasks should only be done selectively to troubleshoot specific problems, not en masse as routine maintenance.
​
Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software. Among other things, it has its own maintenance scripts that run silently in the background on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, without user intervention.
 
Even macworld reviewed it and gave it a good review. Maybe it was because they were being paid to or whatever. Anyway I still am happy with it the sole reason I bought it was to free up space which is what it's advertised to do and it did just what was supposed to.

http://www.macworld.com/article/203...necessary-files-to-free-up-storage-space.html

Reading those issues about cleanmymac are pretty scary. Hope mine is okay. I wouldn't want to have to reload everything. I'm going to test that all my apps open up normally. I only use a few on a regular basis.
 
Last edited:
koolzero said:
Even macworld reviewed it and gave it a good review. Maybe it was because they were being paid to or whatever.
Click to expand...
There are countless examples of bad software getting good reviews from journalists, but bad reviews from users. You can do what you want, but based on the number of complaints and the fact that the app is unnecessary and in many cases ineffective, it's not recommended.
 
koolzero said:
Even macworld reviewed it and gave it a good review. Maybe it was because they were being paid to or whatever. Anyway I still am happy with it the sole reason I bought it was to free up space which is what it's advertised to do and it did just what was supposed to.

http://www.macworld.com/article/203...necessary-files-to-free-up-storage-space.html

Reading those issues about cleanmymac are pretty scary. Hope mine is okay. I wouldn't want to have to reload everything. I'm going to test that all my apps open up normally. I only use a few on a regular basis.
Click to expand...

I realize that some of these apps work well for many people. Even for the best of them, there's a risk. It might do what you hoped it would do (yay!) but it might also corrupt your HD -- possibly in ways you may not realized for a while (uh oh).

For 6GB of drive space, I'd rather spend my money on a higher capacity drive than on Cleanmymac.
 
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