How to clean an already installed Mac OS Mavericks without a complete reinstall

Question

I have an iMac that has OS X Mavericks installed. I've been using it as a desktop computer for quite a while now. Downloaded movies, installed apps, have several users, etc.

Now I need to give this computer to a collegue, who is going to install XCode on in and do iOS development.

I'd like to provide him a machine, that is as clean as possible, and provides it's best performance. Is there a way I can clean everythin on my OS X without reinstalling an entire system, e.g. from OS X interface. Something like Resotore Factory Defaults?

Answer 1

You can't do that without reinstalling the operating system. You can use programs like App cleaner: http://www.freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/ to help uninstall apps, widgets and others with all of there support files, plist, caches, etc. It's really easy to use.

About performance, you can do a couple of things, off the top of my mind, you can first verify and repair disk permissions: Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility

There are programs like Onyx that help you get rid of corrupted data files and caches, but stay away from Mackeeper.

Hope this helps :)

Answer 2

It's probably best to scrub the drive and reinstall it from the ground up. This is usually fairly easy to do, as holding down the "Option" key on boot will present different boot options, one of which is the rescue or recovery image.

From there it's possible to re-partition the drive, erasing your data, and re-install the operating system. If you want to be super secure you'd go through the trouble of choosing the "Erase Data" option in the Disk Utility tool before proceeding.

This procedure might take a few hours, but it has the best possible outcome. A pristine install rarely has problems.