REVIEW - CleanMyMac 2 by MacPaw

CleanMyMac 2 by MacPaw

A utility review by Chase Kreznor

AVSIM may be the world’s largest flight simulation community, but occasionally it’s fun to take a look at products that don’t apply specifically to our hobby, but can be very useful for our daily computing needs.  For all of you Mac addicts out there, CleanMyMac 2 is certainly one of those products.

CleanMyMac 2 is a must have utility for those of us who don’t want our computers to get cluttered up with data as time goes on.  Whether it’s your internet cache, your iPhoto collection, unneeded apps, or the like, this product will help its owner keep things in check with maximum control.

As a recently new Mac owner, I began a hunt for a product that will do all these things after noticing how much accumulates from the Internet browser and also my photo collection.  Little did I know that after running CleanMyMac 2, I had over 5.4 gb of junk data (specifically unneeded language files, app caches, duplicate photos, etc).  What’s interesting to note, that was what CleanMyMac 2 found AFTER running CCleaner.

Suffice to say, I was thrilled to be able to click one button and have an app scan my entire machine and find these files effortlessly.  The program also allowed me to take a peek at what it found in the event I wanted to take a step back and keep some of the marked files.  Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with the product and wish to share my experience with the rest of you.

Download & Installation

CleanMyMac 2 was easy to download ranging about 50 mb in size directly from the MacPaw website.  I might also add the folks over at MacPaw are very friendly and make contacting support very easy.

To install on the Mac is effortless.  I dragged and dropped the file into my Applications folder and it was done.  This is just another one of those things I love about Mac (how user friendly it is).  It’s no surprise that as a user of an efficient user-friendly machine, I would look for the same in the apps I run on it.  CleanMyMac 2 is no exception to this and so far in the process has made me happy.

Automatic Cleanup

After clicking the Scan button on the beautiful User Interface, you see the program come to life and start scanning various areas of your system.  Some of those areas include Large & Old Files, User Cache Files, iPhoto Cleanup, and System Cleanup to name a few.

Once I click the Clean button it prompted me to close Chrome (how polite) to make sure the clean got my internet cache too.  The program began it’s clean and showed me its total progress and what it was currently cleaning.

I like how afterwards, I got this little popup asking me to share my success with my friends.  I didn’t actually share it as I am not a fan of posting these sorts of things on Facebook, but it was still kind of interesting.

“#CleanMyMac saved 5.20 GB of free space on my Mac. Back in 80's it would save me around a million bucks!”

Uninstaller, Extensions Manager, and Eraser

I appreciate the ease of use of the Uninstaller to make sure any related files are cleaned from my Mac when I no longer want an app.  I used it to uninstall my MotoCast software and it found all related files and archives which were promptly uninstalled. I like this feature as Mac apps can leave files behind even though the app itself is removed.

The extensions manager is interesting, however I didn’t touch any of the settings, as it seems a little more than I want to play with on my Mac.  I don’t want to erase any of the extensions I use.

The Eraser is another nice feature.  It advertises that it cleans quickly any file or set of files and folders without leaving a trace.  I tried it on some old review pictures that have already been published to the server, and it appears to work quite well.

Overall

I believe overall this app is a must have for anyone that owns a Mac.  It’s what CCleaner wants to be, but on steroids, with an amazing user interface and very easy to use.  At about 40 bucks for a license, I believe it’s money well spent for a powerhouse app.