Check out what top Mac resources and magazines think about CleanMyMac 3. Reviews are detailed and come from the most respected journalists.
Quick Summary is the best Mac cleaning app for most people. Together with, we rated the bundle as our top recommendation in the roundup. CleanMyMac is extremely easy to use and lives up to what it claims to offer.
In fact, the app does more than just clean-up; it also offers a number of other maintenance utilities. It’s like an all-in-one software suite that cleans and optimizes your Mac in a convenient way. Do you ever need CleanMyMac? In my opinion, if you are new to Mac, are still learning macOS, or don’t have time to spend trying different apps to maintain your Mac, then CleanMyMac is a great option. If you are a power user who is comfortable handling technical stuff, then you probably won’t benefit that much from the app. In this review and tutorial, I will take you behind the scenes of how I use the app to remove unneeded files, deep clean Mac hard drive, uninstall apps thoroughly, etc.
I’ll also explain the reasons why I gave the app the ratings I did. Quick Navigation // // // // // // // // // // Note: The post was last revamped for freshness and accuracy in January 2018. The latest version of CleanMyMac is now CleanMyMac X, while the screenshots in the post below were initially taken based on version 3.4. We won’t update this post any more. Please our detailed instead. Also, MacPaw no longer offers live chat in customer support.
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125408500/500771381.jpeg)
Why Should You Trust Me? Hi, my name is JP, and I’m the founder of SoftwareHow.
Like you, I’m just a normal Mac user who holds a mid-2012 MacBook Pro – still, the machine works fine! I managed to speed it up after replacing the internal hard drive with a new Crucial MX300 (now a legacy product, check out the new ), an SSD I highly recommend for those of you who use an old Mac. I’ve been using the CleanMyMac app for a while. As you can see from the purchase receipt below (I used my personal budget to buy the app). Before I wrote this review, I thoroughly tested every feature of the app and reached out to the MacPaw support team via email, live chat (now no longer available), even phone calls. You can see more details from the “Reasons Behind My Ratings” section below.
The goal of writing this kind of review is to inform and share what I like and dislike about an app. I also suggest you check out the “Fair Disclosure” section below ? Unlike most other review sites which tend to only share positive things about a product, SoftwareHow reviews are different in many aspects. I believe users have the right to know what’s NOT working with a product, regardless it’s hardware or software. The content in the quick summary box above serves as a short version of my opinions about CleanMyMac 3. You can also navigate through the table of contents to find more information.
What Is CleanMyMac? According to MacPaw (the app maker), CleanMyMac is a cleaning tool that you can use to:.
Clean your Mac hard drive by removing gigabytes of system junk and trash. Maintain your Mac with a set of small utilities. Monitor the health of your Mac with key alerts and notifications. The main value proposition of Clean My Mac is that it cleans unneeded files on a Mac, thereby improving its performance while freeing up disk space. Another selling point is its ease of use: It takes only a few clicks to scan and clean the files users probably want to get rid of. The brand new CleanMyMac 3 has added several key features including improved Smart Cleanup, cleaning out Mail attachments and iTunes junk, Mac health alerts, and some maintenance utilities.
Learn more about. Is CleanMyMac 3 legit? Yes, it is a software designed and developed by a company called, which has been in business for 8 years (source: Business Profile). MacPaw boasts CleanMyMac 3 to be the best Mac cleanup app. But it does more than just cleaning: MacPaw tries to make the software an all-in-one toolkit that integrates a number of useful utilities to solve additional problems your Mac might have. Is CleanMyMac Safe?
Well, it depends on how you define “safe”. Speaking from a security perspective, the answer is yes: CleanMyMac is 100% safe to use. I ran and Bitdefender Antivirus on my MacBook Pro and they don’t find any threats associated with the app. It does not contain any virus, malware or crapware, provided that you download it from the official MacPaw website.
If you get the app from other third-party download sites like download.com, beware that it may be bundled with bloatware. That’s why HowtoGeek claims. In addition, I have used MalwareBytes Antivirus to run a thorough scan of my Mac when CleanMyMac is running, and no security issues were found. From a technical perspective, CleanMyMac is safe if you know what you are doing.
Some users on Apple discussion community complained the app for causing certain problems. I have never experienced any such issues; however, I don’t deny that MacPaw over-exaggerates its smart cleaning capability. In my opinion, software is not human. Even if it has sophisticated machine-learning algorithms to analyze patterns, wrong decisions could still be made in rare cases. Also, improper human operation — deleting critical system or application files, for example — may cause some apps to not work as expected. In this sense, I suppose, CleanMyMac is not perfectly safe.
CleanMyMac 3 — What’s in It for You? The app includes a number of utilities which can be categorized into three sections: Health Monitoring, Cleaning, and Utilities. Health Monitoring The feature is reflected in the CleanMyMac Menu. It gives you a quick overview of how your Mac is performing. It shows how much storage space is available, the status of memory usage, battery information, and whether you have too much stuff in Trash. If memory usage is too high, you can move your mouse cursor to the “Memory” tab and click “Free Up”.
Likewise, you can also “Empty Trash” by moving the cursor to the “Trash” tab. You can set alerts for when your hard disk’s free space is below a certain amount, trash files exceed a certain size, or a resource-heavy app is exploiting your Mac. All these can be set under Preferences CleanMyMac 3 Menu. Also, here you can disable the menu bar from showing up, simply slide the button from green to white. My personal take: The health monitoring feature is quite light. Don’t be fooled by the name, because it does not really monitor the health conditions of a Mac. The health conditions I’m concerned about here are malware, system issues, and other related matters.
I admit that these are the things that anti-virus or anti-malware does. Clearly, the MacPaw team doesn’t plan to enter this competitive yet controversial market, at least not now. I also think this does not fit the vision of the product, and it’s not their competitive advantage to do that due to the nature of antivirus or malware detection.
The reason why I said it’s light is that almost every function I listed above can be achieved with the default utility in Mac OS X. For instance, to learn your computer’s available storage space and composition, you can click Apple logo About This Mac Storage and get a quick overview. To check memory usage and resource intensive apps, you can rely on the Activity Monitor utility ( Applications Utilities Activity Monitor) to get more details. But again, CleanMyMac integrates all these into one panel and displays them in a nicer way. Cleaning This is the core of CleanMyMac 3. It contains two parts: Smart Cleanup & Deep Cleaning.
Like the name indicates, Smart Cleanup quickly scans your Mac, then shows you files that are safe to be removed. In my MacBook Pro, it found 3.36GB of files ready for cleanup.
The scanning process took about 2 minutes. Deep Cleaning includes six sub-parts that enable you to detect and remove specific types of unneeded files. System Junk: Removes temporary files, unused binaries and localizations, various broken items and leftovers, etc. This will help free up space and boost your Mac performance without affecting app functionality. For my MacBook Pro, it found 2.58GB of system junk.
Photo Junk: In older versions, it was called iPhoto Junk. This utility cleans your out Photos trash, and reduces the size of your photo library by removing supporting data from it. It also detects and remove duplicated copies of your previously edited images, and replaces RAW files with JPEGs. Be cautious when using this utility. If you are a professional photographer who prefers to keep the RAW image format, move those RAW files to an external hard drive.
In my case, since I sync photos on my PC, it’s no surprise to me that the app didn’t find much photo junk — only 8.5 MB. Mail Attachments: Deletes local mail downloads and attachments including documents, pictures, archives, music, etc. Caution: Always review these files before you remove them. In my case, the scan found 704.2MB of mail attachments. A quick review revealed that I had sent several attachments multiple times, which meant that they’re safe for removal. ITunes Junk: Kills locally stored iOS device backups, old copies of iOS apps stored on your Mac, broken iTunes downloads, and used iOS software update files. Here’s my recommendation: Transfer or keep those iOS device backups in case of unexpected iPhone or iPad data loss.
Since I mainly use my PC to sync stuff and make device backups with iTunes, CleanMyMac didn’t find much iTunes junk on my Mac. Trash Bins: Empties all the trash bins on your Mac–not only Mac Trash, but also the trash bins in your Photos, Mail trash, and other app-specific junk bins. It’s pretty straightforward; the only suggestion I have is to examine the files in those trash bins. It’s always easier to send a file to the Trash than to pull it back out.
Large & Old Files: Discovers and removes old files you may have forgotten about on your hard drive, many of which are large duplicates. In my MacBook Pro, the app identified 68.6GB such files. Many of them were duplicate items, as you can see from the screenshot below. Beware: Just because a file is old or large does not mean you should delete it.
Once again, be cautious. My personal take: The cleaning features in CleanMyMac 3 work great in detecting all types of system junk and files that are safe for removal.
Done well, you can free up a good amount of storage space and optimize performance. But I have to warn you that many of the files that Clean My Mac identifies might not be okay to remove.
Never hit the “Remove” or “Empty” button until you have carefully reviewed each app or file with the “Review Files” function. Also, I’d like to give a piece of feedback to the MacPaw team: Please make the “Review Files” option more obvious — or, when users click the Remove button, pop up a new window asking us whether we’ve reviewed the files and then confirm deletion afterwards. Utilities Uninstaller: This removes unwanted Mac applications as well as their associated files and folders. MacOS makes it easy to uninstall apps — you just drag the application icons to the Trash–but oftentimes leftovers and pieces still remain.
I find this feature extremely useful because I can get rid of unused apps — in a batch, after the app displays them in a tree structure. Cleaning apps and their leftovers tends to free up a good amount of storage space. Maintenance: Optimizes your Mac by running a number of manual or scheduled tasks, such as verifying the startup disk, setting up repair disk permissions, reindexing Spotlight, speeding up Mail, etc. In my opinion, many of these features are redundant because Apple’s Disk Utility is powerful enough to handle most of your needs. But once again, CleanMyMac 3 re-organizes those functions in an easier-to-use way. Privacy: This mainly removes web browser junk like your browsing history, cookies, download history, saved passwords, etc. It also cleans footprints left behind in chat applications like Skype and iMessage.
For me, it’s not that useful because I want to keep those private files for the sake of convenience, e.g. Logging into sites without re-entering passwords, looking back on my chat history for past conversations, etc. I also recommend you be cautious when removing these files. Once deleted, they are usually unrecoverable.
Extensions: This gathers all the extensions, widgets, and add-ons you’ve installed on your Mac and web browsers and displays them in one place. You can also manage Login Items here. Again, whether or not you want these comes down to convenience. To me, it’s not that useful because I know how to remove extensions, or login items. By the way, I’m surprised that the app adds its menu to my Login Items automatically — I’m not happy about that, even if it is easy to disable.
One more thing that puzzles me is that the app failed to detect FireFox plugins. Shredder: This helps you securely delete files and folders you no longer want to keep. Items erased using this technique are unrecoverable, so be careful and not shred the wrong items. In my opinion, this option is useful for Macs that run spinning hard disk drives (HDDs), but not for SSDs (solid-state drive), because emptying the Trash is enough to make those files unrecoverable due to the way manage data. My personal take: The Utilities module does include a number of useful features that enable you to better maintain your Mac, and MacPaw’s design team makes it a breeze to navigate those features. However, the only module I find helpful is the Uninstaller, and I can rely on Disk Utility or other macOS default apps to complete almost every maintenance task that CleanMyMac is capable of.
Reasons Behind My Ratings Effectiveness: 4/5 While I’m impressed by CleanMyMac’s Smart Cleanup and deep cleaning utilities, I have to admit that not every Mac is created equal. The benefits you can gain from using the app will vary. The core value of the app is that it removes unnecessary files and apps from a Mac, making it run cleaner and faster (the second point originates from my gauge of MacPaw’s marketing message). My arguments mainly include two parts.
First off, not every Mac is that “dirty,” especially if your Mac is brand new. Older Macs tend to get used more, which means more junk files.
Once you use CleanMyMac 3 to remove those junk files thoroughly, you’ll get a performance boost, but it won’t be dramatic. There are many reasons. Sometimes a hardware upgrade is the best solution to improve overall performance. Secondly, macOS Sierra’s will likely make your Mac hard drive less crowded. If you’re like me, you watched the Apple WWDC16 back in June. They announced at that event that one of the new features in OS Sierra is that Mac will make room for new files by keeping older ones in the cloud. More specifically, it will make all of the files stored on the desktop and documents folder of your Mac available through iCloud.com.
Remember the colorful storage bar Craig Federighi showed to us: all of a sudden, 130GB of new free space was generated. Price: 4/5 CleanMyMac is not free, even though it offers a demo that is free to download and will clean up to 500MB of data. The app includes smaller utilities that achieve a number of different tasks. The truth is that nearly all of them can be replaced by either Apple’s default utility or a free third-party app. That said, $39.95 is not killing it considering the convenience this all-in-one app brings to the table in an incredibly easy-to-use manner. Also, you can always reach out to their customer support for questions.
In a nutshell, the app saves you time and energy by streamlining how you maintain your Mac. Ease of Use: 5/5 I’m not a designer, so I can’t evaluate the pros and cons of the app’s UI/UX like a pro. But as someone who has used MacOS for over six years, and have tried hundreds of apps, I confidently say CleanMyMac is one of the finest-designed apps I’ve ever used. Its sleek interface, high-quality graphics, clear call-to-actions, text instructions and documentation all make using the app a breeze. Support: 4.5/5 MacPaw’s support team can be reached via one of the three methods: email, phone calls and live chats. I contacted them through all these means. Here’s my advice: if you have urgent issues with the app, pick up your phone and call them directly.
If it’s not convenient to call, check if their support is available via live chat. For general requests, shoot them an email. Phone calls — +1 (877) 562-2729, toll free. Their support is very responsive and professional.
The rep I spoke to answered all my questions, I’m quite happy about my experience. Live chat — available during working hours in the United States. Update: this option is no longer available. Emails — [email protected].
They replied my email within 6 hours, which is not bad. Is CleanMyMac Free? The app is built around a try-before-buy model. While the demo version is free to download and use, it only allows you to clean 500MB files. To remove that limitation, you’ll have to buy a license.
Unlike many other SaaS (Software as a Service) products that use a subscription-based revenue model, MacPaw adopts a one-time payment for CleanMyMac. The license you pay for is based on the number of Macs that will use the app. Learn more about. $39.95 for one Mac. $59.95 for two Macs. $89.95 for five Macs If you need more than 10 licenses, I guess the final price would be negotiable and you can contact the MacPaw support team for further information.
MacPaw offers a standard 30-day money back guarantee. If you are not satisfied with CleanMyMac 3 within 30 days of your purchase period, drop an email to their support team or directly call them to request a refund. I’ve contacted their support team via both email and phone, and they were quite supportive and professional in both cases. CleanMyMac 3 Discount There’s no working coupon code at this moment, but MacPaw occasionally offers site-wide special deals on important holidays. The only promotion offer you can take advantage of now is, you get:. + CleanMyMac + for $62.95 only (saving 20%). Gemini + CleanMyMac for $53.95 (saving 10%).
You may also get, a software subscription service for Mac apps. Read our here.
CleanMyMac Alternatives (Free + Paid) CleanMyMac is not for every Mac user, and I’ve explained why above. The key selling points of the app are its all-in-one concept and ease-of-use. In short, it all comes down to convenience and productivity. Almost every feature the app offers can be achieved using some other third-party apps, often for free.
The trade-off is time and convenience. That said, here’s a list of free and paid alternatives to CleanMyMac 3 ( I call CMM for simplicity as well). — free, it’s able to run miscellaneous maintenance and cleaning tasks on your Mac. A good substitute for the cleaning module in CMM. — free, it uninstalls apps quickly and clears the leftovers altogether.
The app is quite similar to CMM’s Uninstaller. — free, it helps to quickly locate and remove large-size files. It’s equivalent to CMM’s Cleaning Large & Old Files. — free, it removes unnecessary language packs you probably don’t need. This could save several hundred megabytes of disk space.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t support macOS Sierra or High Sierra. — free version available (Pro $19.95). The app offers a number of key cleaning features for free, while the Pro version is also quite affordable. Read my full. — paid (starting from $19.99). Similar to what CMM offers and MacClean is a bit cheaper.
However, we found the UI of MacClean is less appealing, read our. — paid (starting from $39.95). A direct competitor of CMM. Its cleaning capability is inferior, but it comes with two powerful features: duplicates finder and malware detection, neither are offered by CMM at this moment. FAQs Can CleanMyMac 3 speed up my Mac? Macs run slow for a variety of reasons.
If that slowness is related to an macOS system, CleanMyMac can turn it up a bit. If your Mac is slow because the machine shows its age and the hardware is outdated, then adding extra RAM or replacing the hard drive with an SSD (solid state drive) is the most effective solution to increase performance. How to get CleanMyMac activation number (keygen)? There is no keygen or free activation number. The only legal, legitimate way to get the app is to purchase a license from MacPaw. Is CleanMyMac compatible with latest macOS? Yes, MacPaw claims it’s fully compatible with OS X 10.11 El Capitan, 10.12 Sierra, and 10.13 High Sierra.
They also released a beta version for High Sierra. I assume the beta version will become public once macOS High Sierra officially launched in the market. Is CleanMyMac 3 available for Windows? No, the app is for MacOS only. If you are using a Windows PC, MacPaw has a product called for that platform. You can also read our full. How to uninstall CleanMyMac?
Simply drag the application to the Trash and empty it. You can also use the Uninstaller feature within the app to clean the remnants. Conclusion Is CleanMyMac 3 worth it? In my opinion, the app is perhaps the best Mac cleaning app, and it does more than just cleaning.
However, CleanMyMac isn’t for everyone. If you are new to Mac OS or don’t want to spend the time to learn and try different apps to maintain your Mac, CleanMyMac is a great choice. For power users who are comfortable with Mac computers, CleanMyMac won’t offer that much value. A clean Mac is better than a dirty one. While the app can help you free up a considerable amount of disk space, don’t forget to back up those files that you can’t afford to lose — in particular, the photos and videos you shot with families and friends. Mac hard drives will die one day, maybe sooner than you thought. This just happened to my 2012 MacBook Pro.
The main Hitachi hard disk drive (750GB) died, and I lost a ton of precious photographs. Lesson learned! Now my MacBook is with a new Crucial MX300 SSD. Anyway, the point is that protecting your files is more important than deleting unneeded ones. Fair Disclosure This review contains affiliate links, which means if you visit MacPaw’s website via any of these links and purchase a license, I’ll be paid a percentage of commission.
But that comes at no additional cost to you. MacPaw offers a 30-day money back guarantee. If you decide to cancel your order, you’ll get a full refund immediately and I won’t get paid. If you decide to buy, I want to say thank you. Your support will help me keep up this blog and help more people tackle tech challenges.
I was contacted by the MacPaw marketing team before I wrote this review, and they offered me a free activation code for evaluation purposes. Two reasons: first of all, I was concerned about license accessibility. I suspected that the license they sent to me might be more powerful than the common licenses they offer to customers. Thus, my review would fail to represent from a general user’s perspective. Secondly, it’s my own personal principle not to review any commercial products for the sake of review itself. I firmly believe if a software does provide value, I don’t mind paying for it. That’s what I did for CleanMyMac 3 and got a single license on my own budget.
I’m here to disclaim that this review is primarily based on my own testing of the app on my MacBook Pro, and information from MacPaw’s website and user feedback, which is available on various Apple Mac forums and communities. As such, please note the opinions in this article are my own and by no means do I intend or claim to be a software-testing expert. I highly encourage you to do your own due diligence before you try or buy the app. Your Feedback Did you find this article helpful? How do you like CleanMyMac?
Do you have any other good alternatives to the app? I’d like to hear from you. Please leave a comment below. If you decide to download or buy CleanMyMac, I’d appreciate it if you can to do so. That way, I’ll get a commission (see disclosure above). In doing so, you’re helping me to create more useful tech tips and unbiased reviews in this blog. I had already purchased and used CleanMyMac this evening, then saw your review.
I agree that over the years as a Mac user (since 1989), there has not been an app that has so much all in one place. The interface is easily understood. I would rather pay my $39 and have it do all the work instead of using different apps to do different things. I do think, though, that they should have a warning – especially on “Large and Old Files” – that you could lose files you can’t replace.
Just being BIG file does not make you an EVIL file! By the way, I was down to about 12 GB of free space. After using this I have about 40 GB! I didn’t touch my big and old files. Hi Kevin, Thanks for the comment. Can’t agree with you more that the app is well-designed and convenient to use.
I remember I came across a piece of news that basically rated the MacPaw design team as one of the best in industry. Not sure if that’s true, but I do feel their product UI/UX is superior than most Mac apps. Regarding your suggestion. I don’t know what version you’re using, but I just opened CleanMyMac (version 3.6) again and used the “Large and Old Files” feature, and I did see warnings. One shows up when I select multiple files to remove, and the second pops up confirming that I can’t undo this action. However, I also noticed there was an option called “Do not show this message again”, maybe you’ve checked it.
Guess that may be the reason. Anyway, good to have your opinion here. By the way, you mentioned that “the app has so much all in one place”, actually I was hoping that they would integrate the duplicate finder features in Gemini 2 into CleanMyMac. If that happens in the future version, I’d say it’s really an “all-in-one” app. Great Review, and I agree Of course, I’m only reading this after purchasing “CleanMyMac3”.
I got the dreaded “startup disk is full” message on my MacBook Air. The MacPaw folks were the first hit on a Google search about how to remedy the situation, and although I realized I was reading an advertisement, MacPaw’s “how to clean your startup disk” article was very useful. So, I then looked at their software, and decided that the price was right. Having now run through a cleaning session on both my iMac desktop, and my MacBook Air, I have to say I’m really pleased by the thoroughness of the software. I didn’t think Macs suffered from all the little breadcrumb files scattered about in the background like PCs do, but it seems they do after all. I used to implement CCCleaner for the PCs in my old office, but after converting to Apple products, didn’t give this kind of thing a second thought.
I’m very happy to have come across CleanMyMac3 – it’s easy to use, it has what appears to be good ongoing maintenance functions; and the after the cleaning process was completed, the result was substantial reclaimed space on the startup disks in both computers. Good product, and not expensive. I’m now a fan of MacPaw products. I know I’m late to the discussion. Sadly, CleanMyMac has a dreadful online reputation. There is scarcely an online review site such as Macupdate that does not feature a plethora of negative reviews threatening the apocalypse if one uses CleanmyMac. Yet, I had a coupon and bought CleanMyMac 3.
I actually very much like the app. Granted, I do think one needs to do due diligence in approving certain maintenance, and junk removal functions but I do not see what all the fuss is about. Why do you think CleanMyMac has such a dreadful online reputation as per user reviews?
That’s a good question, George. I actually have no idea either. Before I wrote this review, I also bumped into several online discussions (mostly forum threads) where people express negative experiences using the app. But after trying it myself, I actually like the app. I think psychology or user behavior is probably the reason.
Unhappy customers are more likely to post their experiences online. Yes, I quite agree with you on the due diligence part. I think I also pointed them out in the article. Sorry for the late reply. I get dozens of comments daily, many of which are machine-generated spams. I’m kinda tired of sorting out genuine/great comments like yours ?. Help somebody.!!!!
I have a MacBook Pro 17inch with parallels/windows7 all up and running fine since 2years or more. Last time i used windows was 4wks ago before i bought and used clean my mac 3 and then totalAV (for bugs etc). Again all apps working until a few days ago when i opened windows again after 4 wks,.parallels asked me to update and verify my account but windows came up as a blank black screen with windows 7 in red written and a drop down tag informing the virtual machine in not available files are missing or been deleted. Have opened and checked out all apps on my OS all good except for windows.
Yesterday i deleted totalAV on advice given and now i am stuck. Would be grateful. Thanks.mike.
How to maintain a Mac 1. Make redundant backups, keeping at least one off site at all times. One backup is not enough. Don’t back up your backups; all should be made directly from the original data. Don’t rely completely on any single backup method, such as Time Machine. If you get an indication that a backup has failed, don't ignore it. Keep your software up to date.
In the App Store or Software Update preference pane (depending on the OS version), you can configure automatic notifications of updates to OS X and other Mac App Store products. Some third-party applications from other sources have a similar feature, if you don’t mind letting them phone home. Otherwise you have to check yourself on a regular basis. Keeping up to date is especially important for complex software that modifies the operating system, such as device drivers. Before installing any Apple update, you must check that all such modifications that you use are compatible. Incompatibility with third-party software is by far the most common cause of trouble with system updates.
Don't install crapware, such as “themes,” 'haxies,' “add-ons,” “toolbars,” “enhancers,' “optimizers,” “accelerators,” 'boosters,' “extenders,” “cleaners,” 'doctors,' 'tune-ups,' “defragmenters,” “firewalls,” 'barriers,' “guardians,” “defenders,” “protectors,” most “plugins,” commercial 'virus scanners,” 'disk tools,' or 'utilities.' With very few exceptions, such stuff is useless or worse than useless. Above all, avoid any software that purports to change the look and feel of the user interface. The more heavily promoted the product, the more likely it is to be garbage. The most extreme example is the “MacKeeper” scam.
As a rule, the only software you should install is that which directly enables you to do the things you use a computer for — such as creating, communicating, and playing — and does not modify the way other software works. Use your computer; don't fuss with it. Safari extensions, and perhaps the equivalent for other web browsers, are a partial exception to the above rule. Most are safe, and they're easy to get rid of if they don't work. Some may cause the browser to crash or otherwise malfunction. Some are malicious.
Use with caution, and install only well-known extensions from relatively trustworthy sources, such as the Safari Extensions Gallery. Never install any third-party software unless you know how to uninstall it.
Otherwise you may create problems that are very hard to solve. Beware of malware. Malware is malicious software that circulates on the Internet.
This kind of attack on OS X used to be so rare that it was hardly a concern, but it's now increasingly common, and increasingly dangerous. There is some built-in protection against downloading malware, but you can’t rely on it — the attackers are always at least one day ahead of the defense. You can’t rely on third-party protection either. What you can rely on is common-sense awareness — not paranoia, which only makes you more vulnerable. Never install software from an untrustworthy or unknown source. If in doubt, do some research.
Any website that prompts you to install a “codec” or “plugin” that comes from the same site, or an unknown site, is untrustworthy. Software with a corporate brand, such as Adobe Flash Player, must come directly from the developer's website. No intermediary is acceptable, and don’t trust links unless you know how to parse them. Any file that is automatically downloaded from the web, without your having requested it, should go straight into the Trash.
A web page that tells you that your computer has a “virus,” or that anything else is wrong with it, is a scam. In OS X 10.7.5 or later, downloaded applications and Installer packages that have not been digitally signed by a developer registered with Apple are blocked from loading by default. The block can be overridden, but think carefully before you do so. Because of recurring security issues in Java, it’s best to it in your web browsers, if it’s installed.
Few websites have Java content nowadays, so you won’t be missing much. This action is mandatory if you’re running any version of OS X older than 10.6.8 with the latest Java update. Note: Java has nothing to do with Java Script, despite the similar names. Don't install Java unless you're sure you need it. Most people don't. Don't fill up your boot volume. A common mistake is adding more and more large files to your home folder until you start to get warnings that you're out of space, which may be followed in short order by a boot failure.
This is more prone to happen on the newer Macs that come with an internal SSD instead of the traditional hard drive. The drive can be very nearly full before you become aware of the problem. While it's not true that you should or must keep any particular percentage of space free, you should monitor your storage use and make sure you're not in immediate danger of using it up. According to, you need at least 9 GB of free space on the startup volume for normal operation. If storage space is running low, use a tool such as to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the most space. Move seldom-used large files to secondary storage. Relax, don’t do it.
Besides the above, no routine maintenance is necessary or beneficial for the vast majority of users; specifically not “cleaning caches,” “zapping the PRAM,” 'resetting the SMC,' “rebuilding the directory,” 'defragmenting the drive,' “running periodic scripts,” “dumping logs,” 'deleting temp files,' “scanning for viruses,” 'purging memory,' 'checking for bad blocks,' 'testing the hardware,' or “repairing permissions.” Such measures are either completely pointless or are useful only for solving problems, not for prevention. Let go of the Windows mentality that every computer needs regular maintenance such as 'defragging' and 'registry cleaning.' Those concepts do not apply to the Mac platform.
The very height of futility is running an expensive third-party application called “Disk Warrior” when nothing is wrong, or even when something is wrong and you have backups, which you must have. Disk Warrior is a data-salvage tool, not a maintenance tool, and you will never need it if your backups are adequate. Don’t waste money on it or anything like it. One thing I was surprised to find after buying my first mac (iMac last month) is how bizarre and seemingly incomplete the 'uninstall' procedure is for OS X.
I'm the type of user with Windows who would uninstall a program, then go hunt for any left behind folders. Over the years uninstallers have improved immensley and they get rid of everything 95% of the time. But with OS X, you just drag and drop the main icon into the trash, which at first I thought was BRILLIANT, but then I found that almost every piece of software left all their main folders behind, eating up space on the hdd. I found a youtube video that shows how to manually go in and keep things clean after 'uninstalls', but I didn't think this was necessary on the Mac side of things.
Over time wouldn't you need a proper way to clean things up and prevent the OS from slowing down (and losing hdd space?). I work at a Computer repair shop in Naples FL. So, that means - straightaway - you're not an average user, right? But still as someone who has to clean up adware I'm sure you know of the safe, free alternatives for that job, including Apple' own - also free - instructions. But again, I will offer this for people's consideration: And how come the folks who recommend always have very few points, and the folks who advise against have very many? Coincidence that. Can you explain why all the experienced users on this site recommend against this app and its ilk?
Anything to do with experience? Just wondering. I having been using Clean My Mac 2 for a few months and accepted the free upgrade to Clean My Mac 3. It works well for me and my son and I am happy with my purchase. Since it hasn't been very long, I will post again if there seems to be trouble. The upgrade has several new features and I am just getting around to trying them. When I downloaded it I did so following the advice in an ebook called.
I bought that book because my upgrade to Yosemite did not go well, I wanted to 'take control,' or try to, because my computer was not working well after the upgrade. After running its tasks my computer worked better. I also used a product called Cocktail. That product also seemed to help. Both were recommended in the e-book. Sometimes cocktail has issues since I installed Clean My Mac 3 and I thought perhaps they were conflicting when I stumbled on this conversation.
Before I bought it, I spent a lot of time searching these forums and the web - searching through forums is for me an alarming time sink. There is a lot of disagreement. One feels the risks of taking one or another person's advice and judging without being able to test or understand quite what is happening.
I dislike this feature of contemporary life. I am not a 'power user' nor could I find the time or interest to become one. I am more than weary of devices that don't work quite right. Until recently my Apple devices were a welcome exception to the general crumminess of things - I have used Apple computers since I had a 512K in college. In the end, I bought the book above and decided to follow just one person's advice as a means of keeping things simple. I am glad I did, although i know problems will still occur.
And there are just too many variables for me to control, especially given the amount of time it takes from things that interest me. I appreciate that the more experienced users who have posted in this thread warn against using Clean My Mac and other third party utilities. As others have said one person's experience is not generalizable and I speak only for myself (and my very young son whose computer I maintain.) Perhaps my computer would have recovered performance on its own or a quick lesson from a power user would have worked better.
I promise to post again if there is trouble. So far, Clean My Mac 3 works a treat and I am grateful for it. I hope my experience is useful to the OP.
System 10.10.3 Model Name: MacBook Pro Model Identifier: MacBookPro8,2 Processor Name: Intel Core i7 Processor Speed: 2.2 GHz L3 Cache: 6 MB Memory: 8 GB. One thing I was surprised to find after buying my first mac (iMac last month) is how bizarre and seemingly incomplete the 'uninstall' procedure is for OS X. I'm the type of user with Windows who would uninstall a program, then go hunt for any left behind folders. Over the years uninstallers have improved immensley and they get rid of everything 95% of the time. But with OS X, you just drag and drop the main icon into the trash, which at first I thought was BRILLIANT, but then I found that almost every piece of software left all their main folders behind, eating up space on the hdd. I found a youtube video that shows how to manually go in and keep things clean after 'uninstalls', but I didn't think this was necessary on the Mac side of things.
Over time wouldn't you need a proper way to clean things up and prevent the OS from slowing down (and losing hdd space?). How to maintain a Mac 1. Make redundant backups, keeping at least one off site at all times. One backup is not enough.
Don’t back up your backups; all should be made directly from the original data. Don’t rely completely on any single backup method, such as Time Machine. If you get an indication that a backup has failed, don't ignore it. Keep your software up to date. In the App Store or Software Update preference pane (depending on the OS version), you can configure automatic notifications of updates to OS X and other Mac App Store products. Some third-party applications from other sources have a similar feature, if you don’t mind letting them phone home.
Otherwise you have to check yourself on a regular basis. Keeping up to date is especially important for complex software that modifies the operating system, such as device drivers. Before installing any Apple update, you must check that all such modifications that you use are compatible. Incompatibility with third-party software is by far the most common cause of trouble with system updates. Don't install crapware, such as “themes,” 'haxies,' “add-ons,” “toolbars,” “enhancers,' “optimizers,” “accelerators,” 'boosters,' “extenders,” “cleaners,” 'doctors,' 'tune-ups,' “defragmenters,” “firewalls,” 'barriers,' “guardians,” “defenders,” “protectors,” most “plugins,” commercial 'virus scanners,” 'disk tools,' or 'utilities.' With very few exceptions, such stuff is useless or worse than useless.
Above all, avoid any software that purports to change the look and feel of the user interface. The more heavily promoted the product, the more likely it is to be garbage. The most extreme example is the “MacKeeper” scam. As a rule, the only software you should install is that which directly enables you to do the things you use a computer for — such as creating, communicating, and playing — and does not modify the way other software works. Use your computer; don't fuss with it. Safari extensions, and perhaps the equivalent for other web browsers, are a partial exception to the above rule. Most are safe, and they're easy to get rid of if they don't work.
Some may cause the browser to crash or otherwise malfunction. Some are malicious.
Use with caution, and install only well-known extensions from relatively trustworthy sources, such as the Safari Extensions Gallery. Never install any third-party software unless you know how to uninstall it.
Otherwise you may create problems that are very hard to solve. Beware of malware. Malware is malicious software that circulates on the Internet. This kind of attack on OS X used to be so rare that it was hardly a concern, but it's now increasingly common, and increasingly dangerous. There is some built-in protection against downloading malware, but you can’t rely on it — the attackers are always at least one day ahead of the defense. You can’t rely on third-party protection either. What you can rely on is common-sense awareness — not paranoia, which only makes you more vulnerable.
Never install software from an untrustworthy or unknown source. If in doubt, do some research. Any website that prompts you to install a “codec” or “plugin” that comes from the same site, or an unknown site, is untrustworthy. Software with a corporate brand, such as Adobe Flash Player, must come directly from the developer's website. No intermediary is acceptable, and don’t trust links unless you know how to parse them. Any file that is automatically downloaded from the web, without your having requested it, should go straight into the Trash. A web page that tells you that your computer has a “virus,” or that anything else is wrong with it, is a scam.
In OS X 10.7.5 or later, downloaded applications and Installer packages that have not been digitally signed by a developer registered with Apple are blocked from loading by default. The block can be overridden, but think carefully before you do so. Because of recurring security issues in Java, it’s best to it in your web browsers, if it’s installed. Few websites have Java content nowadays, so you won’t be missing much. This action is mandatory if you’re running any version of OS X older than 10.6.8 with the latest Java update.
Note: Java has nothing to do with Java Script, despite the similar names. Don't install Java unless you're sure you need it. Most people don't.
Don't fill up your boot volume. A common mistake is adding more and more large files to your home folder until you start to get warnings that you're out of space, which may be followed in short order by a boot failure. This is more prone to happen on the newer Macs that come with an internal SSD instead of the traditional hard drive. The drive can be very nearly full before you become aware of the problem. While it's not true that you should or must keep any particular percentage of space free, you should monitor your storage use and make sure you're not in immediate danger of using it up.
According to, you need at least 9 GB of free space on the startup volume for normal operation. If storage space is running low, use a tool such as to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the most space. Move seldom-used large files to secondary storage.
Relax, don’t do it. Besides the above, no routine maintenance is necessary or beneficial for the vast majority of users; specifically not “cleaning caches,” “zapping the PRAM,” 'resetting the SMC,' “rebuilding the directory,” 'defragmenting the drive,' “running periodic scripts,” “dumping logs,” 'deleting temp files,' “scanning for viruses,” 'purging memory,' 'checking for bad blocks,' 'testing the hardware,' or “repairing permissions.” Such measures are either completely pointless or are useful only for solving problems, not for prevention. Let go of the Windows mentality that every computer needs regular maintenance such as 'defragging' and 'registry cleaning.' Those concepts do not apply to the Mac platform. The very height of futility is running an expensive third-party application called “Disk Warrior” when nothing is wrong, or even when something is wrong and you have backups, which you must have. Disk Warrior is a data-salvage tool, not a maintenance tool, and you will never need it if your backups are adequate. Don’t waste money on it or anything like it.
I know this is a little late but several things here. One there is NO ' as far as I can tell; CleanMyMac2 is latest in that line. Second, let's be honest here, the software Apple provides for maintenance is bare bones at best when it exists.
Couple that with people who have no idea on how to write programs for the MacOS and have the program drop files all over the hard drive as if they were on Windows and you have a problem. So there are there are a handful of “cleaners,” 'doctors,' 'tune-ups,' etc that are useful: TechTool Pro (which at one time was part of the Apple Care package) and the aforementioned CleanMyMac2 being the more bang for your buck ones. Third, if you like me have moved your files form Mac to Mac over the years you are going to have files that will cause weird behavior in the OS. CleanMyMac2 was able to find an old OS X extension I didn't even known I still had and it removeal stopped some really flaky behavior of the OS. CleanMyMac2 doesn't do 'damage' as long as you use it intelligently. It is a tool and like any tool it can be misused and cause problems as a result. The claim 'There is nothing it can do that you can't do yourself, for free and more safely.'
Yes the Unix under the MacOS hood is powerful but unless you really know what the sam hill you are doing you can really mess things up. Apple's Disk Utility is still very limited compared to TechToolPro or even the one trick pony DiskWarrior in fixing what find and it still flags stuff that really aren't problems and more you have to fiddle to fix an issue that some third party software can fix in like 10 minutes in the more it it is costing you in terms of actually using your computer.
The point is there is no such thing as 'free' with DIYS. I have never had it do any damage to a system. With the rise in malware and adware on Macs cleanup programs are becoming necessary. Most can be simply dragged to the trash but there a quite a few that totally hijack all the internet browsers in the OS.
Resetting the browsers and dragging the apps to the trash does not resolve the problem. I have had to use adware removal tools on at least 15 macs in the last 3 months and it appears to be an increasing problem. I work at a Computer repair shop in Naples FL. There actually is a Clean My Mac 3 beta that just came out but this only existed a few days ago.
I work at a Computer repair shop in Naples FL. So, that means - straightaway - you're not an average user, right? But still as someone who has to clean up adware I'm sure you know of the safe, free alternatives for that job, including Apple' own - also free - instructions.
But again, I will offer this for people's consideration: And how come the folks who recommend always have very few points, and the folks who advise against have very many? Coincidence that.
Can you explain why all the experienced users on this site recommend against this app and its ilk? Anything to do with experience? Just wondering. Apple Footer.
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