We reviewed the first version of CleanMyMac back in June 2011. We liked it back then, and since CleanMyMac 2 is our sponsor this week, and I’m a regular user of CleanMyMac 2 on my personal MacBook Pro, I thought I’d run the current version through its paces for you.
Overview
MacPaw, developer of CleanMyMac 2 describes the app as such:
CleanMyMac 2 makes space for the things you love. Sporting a range of ingenious new features, CleanMyMac 2 lets you safely and intelligently scan and clean your entire system, delete large, unused files, reduce the size of your iPhoto library, uninstall unneeded apps, and much more – all from one newly designed and beautifully simple interface.
As a user of CleanMyMac 2, I will admit I use it mostly to clean my system of old files such as browser caches and files left behind by other apps. While OS X does an excellent job of housekeeping on its own part, with little slowdown from such things as file fragmentation or incomplete files, in my experience, I can usually grab back 1GB or so of hard drive space by running the app every week or so. And that is with little effort on my part.
Reclaiming space can be a big help if your Mac has a Solid State Drive (SSD) installed as mine does. As the price per GB when purchasing a SSD is still rather expensive, (although prices seem to be on a downward trend), many users find themselves buying a smaller sized hard drive in order to benefit from the added speed a SSD can bring to their Mac.
CleanMyMac 2 has 8 major ways it helps reclaim space:
- Automatic Cleanup – an intelligent algorithm that suggests to remove files which are 100% safe for deletion.
- System Cleanup – remove caches, logs, archives and free up system resources for a better performing Mac.
- Large & Old Files – review and remove large files and folders that haven’t been opened for a while.
- iPhoto Cleanup – significantly reduce the size of iPhoto Library by eliminating unneeded original copies of previously edited images.
- Trash Cleanup – empty Trash folders of Mac’s internal and external volumes including iPhoto Trash.
- Uninstaller – completely uninstall the apps that are no longer needed.
- Extensions Manager – review and manage all app extensions from one dashboard.
- Eraser – erase files from your system and leave no trace behind.
I simply make use of the Automatic Cleanup in most cases. For this review, I ran a scan on my Mac with CleanMyMac 2, and it found what it estimates to be 3.48GB of files that can be safely deleted. 2.9GB of that space is filled with user cache files and system log files. The user cache files are mostly from the Chrome, Firefox, and Safari browsers I have installed on my Mac. The rest are cache files from various other apps I have installed.
While I have never ran into trouble simply telling CleanMyMac to clean my system of such files, the app does give the user the option of looking to see what files the utility has found, and the user can then deselect any files they decide not to have removed.
One feature I particularly like is the ability to find what the utility refers to as “Large and Old Files.” These files are ones that take up a large amount of space, or haven’t been accessed for awhile. This file list can be filtered to display files of a certain size and above, and to display files that haven’t been touched for a specified time. I think many users will be surprised when they see the list of files here. While I don’t use this option to delete any files, I do find it is useful to discover files that could be moved to an external drive or cloud storage, to free up disk space in that matter.
While the above routine is the one I usually follow to keep my hard drive clean of unneeded files, CleanMyMac 2 has numerous other features that can come in handy for users.
The Uninstaller function can be used to rid your system of files that may not get deleted if you simply drag and drop an application tot he trash can as most users do. This function can also help you rid your system of incompatible apps.
The Extensions Manager allows you to either disable or delete any extensions and plugins that are loaded to your system. I find it especially valuable for keeping track of what items are loading at login. I was surprised when I first ran it that certain extensions were loading for apps I was no longer actively using. I was able to disable these login items from loading.
CleanMyMac 2’s Eraser feature will come in handy for users who want to delete files form their Mac, leaving very little chance they can be restored. Drag the files into the Eraser window and click the “Erase” button. They are gone without a trace. The feature will make sure your files are gone from prying eyes.
Verdict
I found CleanMyMac 2 to be invaluable to the way I maintain my Mac. It allows me to periodically take a look at what files are on my machine, and to easy delete them if they are no longer needed. While there are other utilities that are available that are cheaper and even free, CleanMyMac 2 has paid for itself with its ease of use and efficiency.
Of course, before you run any utility like CleanMyMac 2, you should ALWAYS have a recent backup of your hard drive. Of course, we all backup our hard drives on a regular basis. Right?
For more information about CleanMyMac 2, visit the MacPaw website.
Rating:4/5[rating:4.0]
Pricing: CleanMyMac 2 is available at the MacPaw website. A single Mac license is $39.95, a 2 Mac license is $59.95, and a 5 Mac license is $89.95.
Pros:
- This app is easy to use, and is perfect for beginners.
- I love the Eraser function.
- The Large and Old Files function found files I had forgotten about long ago!
- System cleanup makes deleting cache files and logs MUCH easier than doing it manually.
Cons
- The price could be lower, but many will find the app basically pays for itself with the convenience factor.
- The ease of use could lead to deleting of files or disabling functions a user might not recognize they need. Again, backup, backup, backup!
