Clean My Mac 2 review

Last week, I reviewed Washing Machine 2014 by Intego Software. Now I will review Clean My Mac 2 by MacPaw

 

Washing Machine sought to clean up your Mac’s files of garbage files (cruft), duplicates, and then clean up your Mac’s desktop and dock for more efficiency. Its metaphor is a washing machine

Clean My Mac 2, by comparison, seeks to clean out your Mac of files you don’t use any more. It offers no desktop & dock optimization, but more file cleaning tools. Its metaphor is a vacuum cleaner.

 

Automatic Cleanup

You can start with the Automatic Cleanup at the top of Clean My Mac’s sidebar. This will run the full diagnostic sequence and show  you how much the app thinks you can dispose in the way of files. Nothing gets cleansed, though, until you press the Clean button (highlighted in red)

 

 

 

 

 

Below the Automatic Cleanup on the sidebar are its components: System Cleanup, Large & Old Files, iPhoto Cleanup, and Trash Cleanup. 

System  Cleanup, Large & Old Files, iPhoto Cleanup, and Trash Cleanup

System Cleanup works on the files you would use as you work, such as program caches, universal binaries, the language files for your programs, system log files and user log files. You can drill down and select individual caches for deletion. 

Large and Old Files looks for those files over a certain size and past a certain date that you can either archive on an external drive or finally delete. It looks for the files that are both large and old. You can use a slider to move between a minimum size of 50 megabytes (and over) up to a maximum size of 10 Gigabytes (and over). As for age, you can select files with any date up to files 10 years old and older. 

If you click on a file, you’ll see two more icons to the right of it: an eye for QuickLook and a magnifying glass for Open in Finder. The ability to use QuickLook and open in the Finder is very helpful when cleaning out files.

Large & Old Files is an excellent feature

iPhoto Cleanup looks for files in your iPhoto Library that you can delete.

Trash Cleanup cleans up all the Trash folders. It doesn’t stop at the Desktop Trash can, it looks at the Trash folders maintained by programs such as Mail and iPhoto. If you have external USB or Firewire drives attached to your Mac, it also cleans those out if you wish. You can review a list of Trash folders before you commence deletion. 

No specific duplicate search and deletion feature comes with this program, but an app uninstaller and extension manager do come with Clean My Mac 2.

Uninstaller and Extensions Manager

Clean My Mac shows you a list of all your installed applications with a checkbox next to their icon. If you click on the app, you also see their last opened date and the size of the app and its supporting files. Note that it does NOT uninstall apps installed by OS X such as iTunes and TextEdit.

You can drill down to select individual components to delete or just go up to the top of the pane for the Smart Selector options of Complete Removal or Application Reset, where you delete everything but the app to set it up as it was when you dragged it over from the Downloads folder.

 

This is an excellent uninstaller. It provides you with information to help decide which files to delete. 

The Extensions Manager does for files that help your apps, such as audio plugins and dictionaries. It gives you a detailed list of the various items you installed within a category.

Let me reiterate that you cannot delete extensions installed by OS X to begin with. You can only delete those that you installed.

 

 

Eraser 

 

Eraser, the last item on the sidebar, gives you the option to selecting files for deletion from a File Dialog box or by dragging the files to the open window after you have selected a file. Add as many files as you can want. Choose Deselect up in the right-hand corner if you want to start over. It’s a different way to do Trash other than drag and drop onto the Trashcan.

 

Should You Buy Clean My Mac 2 or Washing Machine?

The answer to the question of which to buy is “It Depends.” If your Mac has a relatively clean desktop and you’re satisfied with your Dock arrangement, but need to clear out lots of old files and apps with possibly cryptic names; then Clean My Mac would suit your needs. Its inclusion of QuickLook and Open in  Finder tips the scale in favor of Clean My Mac in this case.

On the other hand, if you’ve got a relatively clean Mac in terms of files; but can’t seem to stop dumping files on the desktop or adding apps to your dock; then you need Washing Machine. Its Desktop Snapshot feature helps you clean out your desktop in a hurry. Its Dock organizing feature can suggest a dock with only your most used apps on it. But it needs the QuickLook and Open in Finder feature, as my previous review stated. It has a great Duplicates Finder, marred only by the lack of  QuickLook and Open in Finder options. 

Neither one will attempt to solve all  your problems, like Norton Utilities for the PC; but neither one will bog down your machine while it operates between cleanings. 

Both can co-exist on your Mac. I’m running both as I write this and have experienced no problems. Since both offer a trial period, try them both and see which one meets your needs. 

Clean My Mac 2 requires OS X 10.7+ (works fine with Mavericks) and 40 Mb of disk space. A license costs $39.95. 

 

Tom Briant

Editor, MacValley Voice