Cleaning Up Mac OS X

Question

Besides doing a fresh install, does anyone have any tips for uncluttering Mac OS X? I install and uninstall a fair few apps and find that after a while things start to chug. I was hoping there might be an easy way to clean orphan files floating around the place and get things feeling snappy again.

Answer 1

Go to ~/Library/Preferences/ and sort by modification date. Anything unused in the last x weeks/months can go. Simply start any application once you install. Keep the files around another month in case you start an application and have an unexpected first-launch experience.

Use a tool like DiskInventoryX oder DaisyDisk, point it at ~/Library/Application Support and nuke anything with more that X MB (I'd recommend 10) you don't recognize or no longer use.

There is no "100%" solution, and since you keep on installing/trying/uninstalling there's really no point.

Edited to add:

Check the LaunchAgents and LaunchDemons folders within your user library and the /Library, as well as the Accounts preference pane in System Preferences.app for unnecessary Login Items

Use DiskInventoryX (free) or DaisyDisk (non-free but pretty) to look around your whole disk to see where your storage went.

Now we're getting very much into subjective territory:

Read into which folders are excluded by default from Time Machine (you don't see them in the preference pane!), I am pretty sure Logs and Caches are among them. Trash their contents (although I find both rather useful, so YMMV).

Most applications can be moved around directories, so if you suffer from application overload, move your own applications to a different directory and remove them from the Dock (preferably one not indexed by your application launcher, i.e. LaunchBar, Quicksilver, etc. if you use such software) and move them out from that "quarantine" once you need them. One month later, delete the "quarantine" directory.

Try out the shareware Hazel. Not for me, but helps with cluttered download folders, I hear.

Install your applications only in ~/Applications (folder within your user directory, need to create it first), except where not possible (iWork and VMware Fusion, and generally everything with an installer comes to mind). This way you can easily carry them over to a different machine without changing /Applications, you cannot mess up access permissions for software accessible to all users and can be sure which ones can be freely trashed, and which ones probably shouldn't.

If you're using Time Machine, it supports restoring only user directories after a fresh install. This goes well with applications in ~/Applications, you might need to reinstall drivers and Installer.app-installed software, though.

Answer 2

TrashMe, it has option Orphan mode to detect unused property file and temp files.

Answer 3

OmniDiskCleaner, which turned free around a year ago, is useful for charting your hard drive and seeing which parts of your Mac is cluttered with files.

Answer 4

You can try Cocktail as well. It does a pretty good job.

Answer 5

For a general clean up, you might want to check out Onyx. Besides a lot of other features, it allows you to

[...] delete caches, to remove a certain number of files and folders that may become cumbersome and more.

A screenshot from MacUpdate:

Alternatively, check out Cache Out X.

Cheers!

Answer 6

I was hoping there might be an easy way to clean orphan files floating around the place and get things feeling snappy again.

Those orphan files are exactly that — orphaned. If they're not used, they shouldn't affect the performance of the OS. Just take a look at the "Date Last Opened" in Application Support, Preferences, Caches, Logs or /var/log for example. The total size and number of files in those folders should also be relatively small.

Edit after @Daniel's comment: those files are sometimes accessed (for example by getattrlist) but the access time isn't saved.

I wouldn't remove:

• Language files or PPC binaries
  • They will be added again by updates.
  • Removing them takes really long at least with Monolingual.
  • I've done it twice, and both times it broke some applications.
  • You'd have to do it regularly if you wanted them to be removed consistently.
• Printer drivers or Garage Band loops
  • Because since 10.6, they are mostly downloaded manually from the internet.
• The bundled applications
  • They are reinstalled by Software Update and when upgrading.
  • It's annoying to dig around packages on the installation disk if you want them back.

CleanMyMac's feature list is a good overview of many of the things that can be removed. Even though none of them will make the OS that much (or any) faster. At least if removing startup items isn't counted.

Answer 7

There is also this tool : cleanapp. This is a "collaborative" tool that will learn from other users.