I’ve been running my mac for 5 years now and I think it’s time to ditch some of the rubbish hiding in the depths of my hard drive. Am a bit reluctant to just google ‘mac cleaner’ as I suspect that route will most likely lead to me dying in a fireball of porn. So here’s what I’m after.

1 – Is there a good method/app for easily identifying big chunks of files I don’t need and can delete happily? A bit nervous to just start zapping stuff if I don’t know what it does but there must be a heap of crap I can dump.

2 – My iTunes library is a bit of a mess with duplicates and missing files. I’ve noticed there are a few apps available for dealing with this but can’t really tell if any of them are any good.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

It costs a few quid, but I’ve been using ‘Clean my Mac’ for years. There is an add-on called Gemini, which looks for duplicates.

Seems to work well, and I just set it to try to run a clean every week or so – typically cleaning a 1-2 GB, but sometimes a lot more if I’ve been working on a video or editing a lot of images.

I’ve used Grand Perspective for years to help free up disc space

http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

It’s a bit odd to start with but you soon get the idea. Set it to scan your whole hard drive. It represents all your files graphically by size so you can spot what is taking up space. I’ve often been able to clear out large chunks where I’d left an imported movie or similar.

It won’t tell you what is safe to delete though but some things are obvious, like video files or music etc.

+1 on Grand Perspective.

Realised I’d left loads of GoPro footage on the SSD the other day for editing then wondered why I’d only got 8GB left…

Prompted me to move/delete about 100GB of other crap which I’d not moved to slower storage.

DaisyDisk is great for identifying chunks of space taken up on your HDD https://daisydiskapp.com

Cocktail is great for running maintenance and cleanup scripts http://www.maintain.se/cocktail/

App Zapper is great for removing apps and their associated files http://www.appzapper.com

Firstly in my HUMBLE opinion Mac’s don’t need to be “kept clean” like Windows machines as the OS does a good job on it’s own. That being said I used Clean my Mac once and tbh I found the main thing it did was delete lots of very small driver/log files and empty the trash and most annoyingly the Downloads folder (I had downloaded stuff but not filed it elsewhere)

I am a bit out of touch but the old iPhoto app used to make a duplicate inside the Library of every file you imported. These days it makes sense to upload photos somewhere with large amounts (e.g. 1TB) of free storage assuming you don’t have copyright issues.

There is another app called OmniDiskSweeper I use occasionally to find where all my storage was going. The main thing it flagged up was the backups of iPhone and iPad which I backup via iTunes. As my Phone/Pad are 64GB these backups are pretty large, its easy to forget how big the phone is relative to the Computer disk.

OmniDiskSweeper is a nice simple tool for seeing where all your space has gone and deleting files.

In general I really wouldn’t worry about build up of small files (old preference files etc.), OS X is very resistant to that type of slowdown-due-to-cruft.

iTunes. Personally I’d pay for Apple Music, get all the files matched/uploaded to the cloud, backup all your stuff to an external drive and then delete all the files from the mac.

EDIT: ie. basically exactly what the dude above posted while I was writing that!

Thanks all. To clarify – I just want to get rid of files I don’t need any more and suspect that 5 years of daily use has generated a bit of fluff that can be gotten rid of. Will have a look at the suggestions.

For iTunes – my library was originally imported from a knackered windows machine and there seems to be loads of duplicate files or just missing files. I know I can sort this manually but life is too short – does anyone have any experience of something like Song Sargeant (or something free that does the same job)?

I just copy what i want to a hard drive, wipe the OS and then reinstall the OS then shove what i want back on.

Just to hijack slightly, my Mac is running a lot slower than ever before, lots of wheel spinning especially on start up. Of the suggestions above is there one that would specifically root out the cause of the slow down?

Disk Inventory X seems very similar.

Used th free trial of Disk Daisy to find all kinds of crap I don’t need any more. Freed up another 50gb!

Morning all

Bit of a thread resurrection. Any thoughts on on johnj2000 question:

Just to hijack slightly, my Mac is running a lot slower than ever before, lots of wheel spinning especially on start up. Of the suggestions above is there one that would specifically root out the cause of the slow down?

I’m having the same problem. System spec as follows:

iMac (27-inch Late 2009)
Processor – 3.06 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory – 4 GB 1067 Mhz DDR3
HD – 1TB, 598GB unused
OS X El Capitan 10.11.4

Ta in advance

Feed it more RAM

Yes, more RAM.

I create a Mac OS boot SD card and completely wipe the disk every year or so. Then reinstall the Mac OS and restore my home folder from Time Machine backups.

Takes an hour or so and keeps my 2012 MacBook Pro really speedy.

Rachel

Feed it more RAM

Feed it an SSD, I’d have thought.

Firstly in my HUMBLE opinion Mac’s don’t need to be “kept clean” like Windows machines as the OS does a good job on it’s own.

Point of note, neither does Windows.

I’m not an expert but here’s my 2 cents

In my experience with Mrs B’s Mac Book Pro more RAM alone will make little difference (took hers from 4 to 10)

@beamers (and probably @john too) yoir problem is likely to be an old / wearing out hard drive. I assume its on the original drive spinning at 5400rpm and at 6 yes old it’s tired (Mrs B’s machine was 2012 and this was the case)

Download Blackmagicspeedtest and run it. My guess is you’ll see 35-40 as read/write speed. I put a Western Digital Black 750gb Hard drive running at 7200rpm in my 2009 Mini and it scores 100-110. The Samsung Evo SSD I put into the Mac Book runs at 225

I have done 4 disk replacements and RAM upgrades (Mini and 3 Macbooks oldest 2008) not too difficult and the disks make the biggest difference certainly once you have 4gb ram minimum. The iMac looks a bit more tricky on YouTube as you have to take the screen off but still do-able at home. Then you have the software install/cloning/restore from backup.

A 500gb SSD is about £100. @Beamer you might look at a 1tb hybrid drive (mix of ssd and spinner with the os on the ssd bit) or payup for a 750 ssd. RAM is easier to add than drive, I found ine 8gb chip cheaper than 2 x 4 so took out one 2gb and out in the 8 to go to 10 = 2 + 8. Cost about £60. Drive is more important. You need a small phillips screw drive and a torx 10 (£3-ish) and for the imac suction cups (not sure if you can bodge without, watch videos)

If you are interested we can discuss on here or you can get a commercial quote (components + £100?). @John I’m not around Hampshire for a bit or I’d offer to help.

Feed it an SSD, I’d have thought.

Agree.

Chances are they have a 5400rpm drive spinning away in there. The only issue is drive swapping on an iMac is a pain, not impossible, but a pain.

The fact Apple were still shipping their 2013-2014 iMacs with a 5400rpm drive was a joke.

Thanks all. Really helpful advice.

The fact Apple were still shipping their 2013-2014 iMacs with a 5400rpm drive was a joke.

Agreed, my 7200rpm drive was pretty cheap in 2012 and is high quality. I can’t understand why they persist with the 5400 ones

@beamers – make sure you are backed up via time machine or at least photos (flikr ?) and key docs (dropbox, google ?) to the cloud. Sooner or later your drive will expire

Run the blackmagic and post resukt here if you wish

500gb SSD £110
1tb SSD £225
1tb hybrid £100

I have 750gb 7200rpm imo not worth it for you go ssd, cost £65

You can add an external drive 1tb for backup etc for £60
You can buy a usb caddy to old your old disk in for £15 so you can still use it

Yep, all backed up on on TV, dropbox, Flickr etc. Original drive was replaced under warranty in 2012 so there should be a bit of life left in it.

It’s old – get a new one!

@beamers cool. If you decide to get a replacement machine (@muffin 🙂 new retinas are amazing) instead I may be interested in your current one as a project. IMO for most of our usage your machine has ample horsepower, fabulous screen just the drive which is now really dated performance wise.

cocktails good, but RAM is the answer, then don’t bother about it.

@muffin new retinas are amazing

They are – I’m sat in front of one right now!

@jambalaya – No plans to change the machine at the moment. No funds for that kind of expenditure at the mo.

Trying to get into the App store at the moment to to download and run blackmagic. I’ll share the results when I have them.

@muffin g1t !

cocktails good, but RAM is the answer, then don’t bother about it.

4 to 10 RAM made virtually no difference to 2012 MBP, transformed with an SSD

@beamers I hear you ! £100-200 spent and it will be faster than many brand new machines. Boot up goes from 2-3mins to 20-30 seconds and new programmes open almost instantly

Sweepstake … 37 😉

Read 79 (max) / write 51 (max)

jambalaya – Member

@muffin g1t !

cocktails good, but RAM is the answer, then don’t bother about it.

4 to 10 RAM made virtually no difference to 2012 MBP, transformed with an SSD

@beamers I hear you ! £100-200 spent and it will be faster than many brand new machines. Boot up goes from 2-3mins to 20-30 seconds and new programmes open almost instantly

Sweepstake … 37

Edit, “RAM’s the easier answer”, obviously, SSD is better, if you can be arsed reinstalling or cloning and swapping over.

The big pain though is actually *getting* to the disk. It’s fiddly on a 2009 iMac (I have the same 27″ model and don’t want to open the damned thing). No USB3 or Thunderbolt so no external booting via fast media. Firewire 800 wouldn’t be fast enough either.

I’d love to put an SSD in my iMac to speed it up.

The next machine will be one where I can get into it. I love my mac but it’s just too locked down, hardware-wise.

Tick

@Adam then pay a specialist who has the tools and has done it before – OP had his changed by Apple already so its not that hard. I do appreciate the concern about messing it up, did my Mini first and getting into it with a wallpaper “slice” as recomended was the worst bit, that and a screw which wouldn’t budge – fortunately I was able to cut the plastic with a kitchen knife and release it – bodge city 😯

@seaso my point was that RAM alone made virtually no difference to my wife’s MBP. It’s my view if you have at least 4GB that will be the case. My 2009 Mini and friends 2008 MBP had only 2gb so then going to 8 and 4 respectively did make a difference. Even with 4gb if you look at activity monitor memory pressure for email/safari/basics its low and the chart is green. I think it would pretty much be a waste of money for @beamers to stick in another 2+8=10 or 4+4=8

I upgraded the RAM from 4Gb to 8Gb on my 2011 MBP and there was a noticable difference in terms of number of programs I could keep running but it wasn’t mind-blowing.

Putting an SSD in was like having a brand new machine.

^^^ this

@seaso my point was that RAM alone made virtually no difference to my wife’s MBP. It’s my view if you have at least 4GB that will be the case. My 2009 Mini and friends 2008 MBP had only 2gb so then going to 8 and 4 respectively did make a difference

It depends how intensely you use your computer tbh.

It depends how intensely you use your computer tbh.

It does of course and although my keyboard gets a good workout on STW that’s not using much processor or the RAM 😀

So while the experts are here – I’ve got a late 2009 macbook (white – well off white now) not a pro, what is the max ram you can put in there? I’ve currently got 4GB, but I’m sure I read a while ago I could go up to 8GB, but I’ve had a google & cannot find any info to confirm this.

@PJ if you get serial number from “About this Mac” there is a tool on the Crucial site which will tell you. FYI Apple often understate max RAM – no idea why

EDIT: just use this … Linky

As above imho you’ll better off spending money on an ssd – £65 for 250gb or £110 for 500gb

OK so I have run the black magic test and am getting between 79 and 92 for write and a steady 85 for read. What does this tell me?