- Joined
- Jun 12, 2011
- Messages
- 9,690
- Reaction score
- 1,879
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia and Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
- Your Mac's Specs
- 2021 M1 MacBook Pro 14" macOS 14.4.1, Mid 2010MacBook 13" iPhone 13 Pro max, iPad 6, Apple Watch SE.
I know over time there has been some general disapproval of third party "cleaning" apps for macOS and often for good reason. We openly promote OnyX and Malwarebytes but still frown on Clean My Mac.
I think this app which I have been using since inception and now in its fourth incarnation as CleanMyMac X has proved itself to be a helpful tool with no more potential to cause harm than OnyX if you use it with care.
Every "Smart" clean can be tailored to omit some files if desired eg. email attachments. The interface is easy to use and looks great.
It's Maintainence menu allows you to pick the actions you want such as reindexing Spotlight, DNS Cache flush and Time Machine snapshot thinning.
The Uninstaller does a great job of removing apps and all associated files in 99% of cases and the Optimisation menu allows viewing and management of Login Items and Launch Agents.
In the last update some refinements were added to a new feature called Space Lens which shows disk usage in a novel way allowing you to identify the largest storage users and give you the opportunity to thin these files out, a little like a simplified version of Daisy Disk.
At all times explanations are available about what you are about to delete and that data is viewable in a finder window.
It is possible to update all apps (not just Apple apps) and weather you choose to go this way is entirely up to the user, personally I choose not to although I have tried it. At the very least it provides a complete list of apps that have pending updates.
There is also a Malware scanner and RAM optimiser built into Smart Scan, if you choose to use them.
All together CMM X is a very user friendly "one stop shop" app with a lot of easy to use convenient built in features and options.
If it poses any risks they are in that once it deletes something it's gone. Not in the trash, gone. And of course user error.
Like all tools it has the potential to do harm if used the wrong way but I can attest to the fact that what it does it does quickly and well. It's certainly not intrinsically harmful and the developers have gone to every length to make it both informative and intuitive.
As always a backup prior to using is advised, especially until you get the hang of setting preferences.
I think this app which I have been using since inception and now in its fourth incarnation as CleanMyMac X has proved itself to be a helpful tool with no more potential to cause harm than OnyX if you use it with care.
Every "Smart" clean can be tailored to omit some files if desired eg. email attachments. The interface is easy to use and looks great.
It's Maintainence menu allows you to pick the actions you want such as reindexing Spotlight, DNS Cache flush and Time Machine snapshot thinning.
The Uninstaller does a great job of removing apps and all associated files in 99% of cases and the Optimisation menu allows viewing and management of Login Items and Launch Agents.
In the last update some refinements were added to a new feature called Space Lens which shows disk usage in a novel way allowing you to identify the largest storage users and give you the opportunity to thin these files out, a little like a simplified version of Daisy Disk.
At all times explanations are available about what you are about to delete and that data is viewable in a finder window.
It is possible to update all apps (not just Apple apps) and weather you choose to go this way is entirely up to the user, personally I choose not to although I have tried it. At the very least it provides a complete list of apps that have pending updates.
There is also a Malware scanner and RAM optimiser built into Smart Scan, if you choose to use them.
All together CMM X is a very user friendly "one stop shop" app with a lot of easy to use convenient built in features and options.
If it poses any risks they are in that once it deletes something it's gone. Not in the trash, gone. And of course user error.
Like all tools it has the potential to do harm if used the wrong way but I can attest to the fact that what it does it does quickly and well. It's certainly not intrinsically harmful and the developers have gone to every length to make it both informative and intuitive.
As always a backup prior to using is advised, especially until you get the hang of setting preferences.
