How to use CleanMyMac to get back hard drive space
There are number of files within the operating system that are completely useless and a waste of space on your hard drive. An example of these types of files would be the language files, it is very unlikely that I will need to have the languages, French, Swahili, Russian or Icelandic available to me within OS X. The application CleanMyMac is great for getting rid of these files that are cluttering up the hard drive. The application CleanMyMac is going to be even more use for people that are working with a small SSD drive, but can be just as useful for someone like myself with a mechanical drive filled with lots of video files taking up valuable space.
Using CleanMyMac
The application CleanMyMac came with the latest MacHeist bundle and was incredibly easy to set up, as you would expect. Quite a lot of people on the social networks have been talking about the application and saying how good it is. So with these endorsements for the efficacy of the application I decided to install it and use it. Even so, if you’re using an application like this, then you really should know for sure that you have good backups already made. I had made a Superduper back up the day before so I felt quite confident in using CleanMyMac. I did a scan of the system with the application and it told me I would be able to save 32 GB of space from my hard drive. I did not use the automatic cleanup because I wanted to see, especially on the first use of the app, what was going to be deleted. There were a couple of files that I chose not to be deleted and there were a couple of languages that were scheduled for deletion, Catalan and Spanish, that I needed to keep.
CleanMyMac also cleans up the iPhoto library
On the first run of the application CleanMyMac, the version of iPhoto was not supported. I needed to get an update to the application the following day in order to be able to use this part of the app. What it does is to remove files that have been altered and the original has been kept by iPhoto. This is particularly useful with photographs that have been rotated. The photograph has not been significantly changed and if you really needed to view the photo with everything on its side, then you can still rotate the photograph again and have exactly what you started with.
Trash cleanup with CleanMyMac
Cleaning out the trash on the Mac OS X system is something which I have been leaving to the Hazel application to look after. I have it set so that once the trash folder gets to 1 GB it will delete the old stuff permanently. CleanMyMac will also monitor the trash folder for you and prompts you to clear it out when it gets too large. If you have been doing some work in iPhoto and there are photos in the iPhoto library trash, you will get the opportunity to clean that up also. I am just looking’s the application now and I can see that I have 885 MB in my trash folder. At the bottom of the application there is a nice large button entitled Empty and I’m going to press it now. The trash has been cleaned up in the blink of an eye and I get a nice musical chime to let me know the job has been done.
The CleanMyMac uninstaller
Once again there is part of the application Hazel that I use for cleaning up, after I have dragged and dropped an unwanted application into the trash, but I could also use CleanMyMac to do this job. A very useful tool within this part of the application is the ability to Sort By Last Launch Date. Then within the list, I can see that there are some applications that have not been opened for more than a year, there are some applications that have not been opened for more than six months and some that have been opened within the last three months. So it is fairly obvious that there are some applications that you are just not using and should perhaps be deleted from the computer. Sometimes we get so involved with using the new applications we can forget other good applications that we have available. I quite like looking in this list to see what I not use for awhile and sometimes I am pleased to be reminded about a great application that I have neglected.
How good is the CleanMyMac application
While there is the possibility with an application like this for you to get rid of something that you need, with CleanMyMac it is as safe as it can be made. I suggest that when you first use it you don’t use the automatic cleanup and you have a careful look through the various parts of CleanMyMac and choose exactly what you want to have deleted.
I am impressed with the quality and the design of the application. It works really well and since I have been using it I have had more space available on my hard drive. I have been able to use it without ending up crying onto my mouse mat and that must be good! Really pleased that I got it with the latest MacHeist bundle. I was so impressed that I bought a second bundle from them to use CleanMyMac on my wife’s computer also. I would recommend that you either buy the application direct or just keep an eye out for it to see if it appears in any other Mac application bundles as they become available.
