HOW DO YOU CLEAN UP YOUR HD

[theposse]

How do you clean up your hard drive.I have had my apple nearly a year now and its got alot of stuff on it i don't use.In windows they have a program that cleans up unused folders and ones that haven't been used in a while.
So how do i clean mine up?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
scottie

 

[g30ffr3y]

right when panther came out i backed up all my stuff and did a nice clean install of the new OS... restored my files and that was that...

by that time my quicksilver had seen 10.1-10.1.? and 10.2-10.2.8 and was almost a year and a half old... probably unecessary... but i like to keep it running top notch...

 

[King Cobra]

How do you clean up your hard drive.

Usually with a couple of paper towels, Windex, Dove soap, Shower & Shine, and then a couple of cotton swabs to get at those really tough zeroes and ones.

I mean...every 6 months or so, I refresh my Hard Drive, to keep its speed up and to remove old software defecations. It's not too big of a deal for me, since I can bring most of the stuff over to my iBook...but I think I'm going to need a low/medium sized external backup drive (like 40 or 60GB), but now I need to find out who's going to have the quality Hard Drives for cheap. I've heard both positive and negative about Lacie drives.

(All right, I just jacked another thread.)

 

[evolu]

to answer your question...

There are cleaning + optimization utilities for the mac:

onyx - free!:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20070

TechTool Pro 4 - My personal favorite Hard Drive Utility, has a great optimization utility:
http://macuser.pcpro.co.uk/?reviews/reviews_story.php?id=53996

and there are tons of others. just go to versiontracker and search for 'cleaning' or 'optimization', etc.

But, i don't know of a program that erases files + folders that have not been recently used... I can't imagine that to be safe anyway. I usually go through my files and folders manually to erase things i don't use anymore.
(an easy way to do this is to use column mode in the finder and sort by date modified). But be careful not to erase anything unless you know exactly what it does!!!

 

[MacNut]

But be careful not to erase anything unless you know exactly what it does!!!

Ive done that and then the cursing begins

 

[MacNut]

I've been wondering this but what is a good Mac defrager or does OSX have one built in?

 

[TitaniumX2]

<shameless plug relation="lead developer">
Although not a defragger [I think the only defragger for Mac is from Symantec's Norton dept.] Infinite Nexus has a piece of software called Compare Folders that takes folders and compares to see what files are new, modified, or the same and a massive overhaul is in progress (item actions, outline organization, and much much more... details can be found in the blog, forums, and iUpdates.)
DriveGauge is useful for seeing when you're running out of space.
</shameless plug>

Besides using CF & DG I also like OmniDiskSweeper, which shows how much space each folder/file is taking up. Quite snappy as well even with 50+ gigs.

 

[603]

defrag

Panther defrags itself constantly, eliminating the need for a third-party app (thanks Apple!). lesser felines will have to use something else.

 

[live4ever]

Check out OmniDiskSweeper.

 

[briankonar]

use Disk Utility to Repair Permissions, a good idea after installing or updating anything.

remove preference files you no longer use.

delete apps you no longer use.

that's it (unless you know exactly what everything is and want to remove FrameWorks, etc. but i don't recommend it).

 

[realityisterror]

I mean...every 6 months or so, I refresh my Hard Drive, to keep its speed up and to remove old software defecations. It's not too big of a deal for me, since I can bring most of the stuff over to my iBook...but I think I'm going to need a low/medium sized external backup drive (like 40 or 60GB), but now I need to find out who's going to have the quality Hard Drives for cheap. I've heard both positive and negative about Lacie drives.

every 6 months might be pushing it a bit. i'd say at most every year. you don't want your drive to have too much unnecessary wear and tear...

reality

 

[King Cobra]

you don't want your drive to have too much unnecessary wear and tear...

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean with regard to my comment...

Well, often, for whatever reason, if I don't refresh my Hard Drive after 4 to 6 months, I have problems starting up my computer. The progress bar sometimes stalls for a minute at about the 40% or 50% mark before it finishes up. Sometimes I can get around the problem, but other times, I can't. So I refresh my Hard Drive often so that this sort of problem doesn't occur during a college semester.

(Last time I refreshed it completely was when I installed Panther...which I regret, since my Jaguar disks broke.)