Mac Software To Clean Up Hard Drive Onyx Rating: 8,0/10 3632 reviews

Functionality beyond Disk Utility is a must to get your Mac up and running. The top five Mac disk repair software presented in this blog can be used to repair your hard disk drive for errors, inaccessibility, or system corruption. This 5 software is either free or can be availed as a trial. So, download the trial version of any repair software. Jul 06, 2020  OnyX – Mac Cleaner Software This is one of the best free Mac cleaner software out there. First, it’s a free tool and it has lots of positive reviews as well. This Free Mac cleaner is a multifunction utility tool which can help you clean up the browsing catch, system junk and optimize the speed of.

  1. Mac Software To Clean Up Hard Drive Onyx Mac
  2. Mac Software To Clean Up Hard Drive Onyx Free

Mac Software To Clean Up Hard Drive Onyx Mac

In order to keep your Mac running smoothly, you need to regularly run the maintenance tasks on your machine. Manually doing these tasks consume a lot of time but there are apps like OnyX for Mac that take care of the maintenance part of your Mac for you.

OnyX for Mac is a free but donation-ware app that lets you clean-up and keep your Mac tidy using various features. It also helps you change the core features of your machine so you can customize it to your liking.

OnyX mavericks is a cleanup utility for mac computers that monitors and allows you to check the condition of your mac. This software performs a number of cleanup and maintenance functions that allows you to create more space on your machine. You can even configure your hard disk so that it operate at the best levels.

  1. Onyx also allows you to access apps and features that are normally hidden on your Mac: Wireless Diagnostics, Screen Sharing and others. The Info section lets you see useful data about your system, such as your hard drive and RAM, free up inactive memory or check for possible malware.
  2. AVG Cleaner for Mac This comes with a clean interface with two main features. The first is the “Disk Cleaner” which scans for junk files stored in the hard drive and removes them. Any leftover files, log files and hidden cache will be detected.

Maintenance Section In OnyX For Mac

Once you grab the app and launch it on your Mac, the first screen you’re going to encounter is likely the Maintenance section one. It’s one of the important and core features of the app.

Inside of the section, you can enable options to maintain the structure of the system files and run maintenance scripts to do their job.

Another interesting feature that might help you fix the core macOS features that are broken is Rebuilding. It helps rebuild various indexes including LaunchServices, XPX Cache, Spotlight index, and Mail’s mailboxes.

The next part is the cleaning one and it’s the most important one as OnyX is actually also a Mac cleaner. Here, you can specify the items that you’d like cleaned up on your Mac. You can select and deselect a number of items in the list. The app will then only work with your chosen items.

Lastly, you have a section that offers cleaning up of miscellaneous items like fonts cache, recent items, the Trash, and auto-saved versions of the documents.

You can make any changes you want to the section and then click on Run Tasks to execute the actual action. You can also click on Restore Defaults to undo your changes.

Mac OnyX’s Utilities Section

The second tab in OnyX for Mac is Utilities that lets you run various scripts and offers you the options to easily access some of the core macOS tools on your machine.

The first tab that says Scripts lets you run daily, weekly, and monthly scripts on your Mac. You can click on the Run scripts button to execute them. The same screen also lets you view the log if you want.

The Manuals tab allows you to view the UNIX manual pages. These pages give you more information about what each UNIX command does and where you can use it. You can export the description of your favorite command as a PDF file.

Process is where your current processes are shown. It usually remains turned off by default but you can turn it on manually. It alerts you enabling it will make the file a bit too large for you.

Most of you out there will actually benefit from the last tab that says Applications. This tab lets you launch some of the core macOS utilities that aren’t prominently shown anywhere on your Mac. But with this tab, you can find and launch any of these tools by just clicking on their names.

Change File Options With The OnyX Files Section

Files section is actually where the most used features for regular users are available. Here, you can show and hide your disks, files, folders, and even your applications.

The Visibility tab lets you define what you want keep invisible and what you’d like to hide from other users on your Mac.

Finding allows you to quickly find a folder or file using keywords on your Mac. It first builds an index and then lets you perform searches on it.

If you want to verify the integrity of a file, the Checksum tab will help you do it. You basically give it your downloaded file and it’ll show the file checksum.

There are several ways to securely delete files on a Mac and the Mac OnyX has an option built for it as well. The Erasing tab lets you safely remove your files and folders from your storage so they can never be recovered.

AppleDouble removes the metadata of the files that have been created by various apps.

The last tab Trash helps you securely erase the contents of the Trash on your Mac.

DriveMac software to clean up hard drive onyx mac

Modify Parameters For Various Default Apps In OnyX

The Parameters tab helps you reveal some of the hidden options lying behind several screens on your Mac.

The thing with Macs is that there are actually a lot more options built into the system than what are normally shown when you open various apps on your machine. This tab of OnyX for Mac is what helps you unhide those options so you can start using them.

The first tab General lets you change some of the general parameters for your Mac. This includes the default screenshot file type, whether to show a shadow in your screenshots, how many recent items to show, and the speed of displaying the sheets among many other options.

There’s also the Finder tab letting you change a number of default Finder options. With it, you can get Finder to show hidden files, show path from the root instead of the home folder, and show various other options that are hidden by default.

There are tabs for the Dock, Safari, Login, and Applications as well. You can explore these for yourself to find out what you can enable and disable on your Mac.

View Your Mac Information In OnyX For Mac

The last tab in OnyX Mac cleaner is Info, and as you can guess by its name, it lets you view the information about your Mac system.

Once you click on it, you’re shown information about your Mac’s hardware, memory, volume, software, profile, and protection.

The first four tabs only show information but the last two let you do something with your Mac. The Profile tab helps you save your current hardware and software profile and the Protection tab helps remove the malware that exists on your Mac.

Our resident Mac Help guru, Peter Cohen, previously told us about the 'Other' storage category on Mac computers and what it catalogs: In short, you're seeing space taken up by plug-ins, documents, and caches stored by OS X.

It's worth noting that these files aren't normally harmful or wasteful to your computer's system; most are intended to help your Mac run efficiently, and ideally, you shouldn't ever have to clear out your Other files. Unfortunately, they can quickly clog up a computer low on storage — especially if you're storing a large number of iPhone or iPad backups.

Whether you're looking to free up space on your hard drive or just want to do some spring cleaning, here are some simple steps to get your Mac free and clear.

Mac Software To Clean Up Hard Drive Onyx Free

A note on what happened to 'Other' space in macOS Sierra and higher

When Apple added its storage management feature to macOS Sierra, called Optimize Storage, it reorganized what 'other' storage is and where it's located on the Mac. Much of it has been divided out through other categories so it's easier to find and remove.

The 100GB of Other storage I used to carry on my iMac is whittled down to just 5GB. You can still clean out old and unnecessary content from your Mac with macOS Sierra and High Sierra by using Optimized Storage. It's just a little easier to find those unused files than it was before.

A lot of the features of Optimized Storage remove content from your Mac and store them in iCloud. If you're concerned with how much storage you're using up in iCloud, you can customize or disable some Optimized Storage features to keep a balance between what's on your Mac and what's in iCloud.

What's this 'Purgeable' category all about?

If you check your system storage graph in macOS, you'll probably discover a category called Purgeable. This is part of Apple's Optimized Storage service. When you move your Documents into iCloud (part of the Store in iCloud component) and your hard drive gets low on storage, only recently opened files are kept on your Mac. Older documents are stored in iCloud, while a shortcut icon is kept on your Mac (files are automatically re-downloaded to your Mac as soon as you open them). The Purgeable files are what Optimized Storage will move to iCloud and delete from your hard drive only if your hard drive starts to get full. Purgeable files also include caches and temporary files that used to fit into the Other category, which will also be deleted as your hard drive starts to fill up.

Though your Other storage might have been spread out across categories in macOS Sierra and higher, you can still follow the below steps to manually clean up your Mac and get rid of unnecessary files.

How to check your storage space on your Mac

If you are concerned with how much storage space you have remaining on your Mac computer, you can check its usage folder to see how much space each category is taking up, including Other.

  1. Click on your desktop or the Finder icon from the Dock.
  2. Select the Apple Menu icon in the upper left corner of the screen.
  3. Click on About This Mac.

  4. Select Storage.

Your Mac breaks down its storage categories as follows: Apps, Movies, Photos, Audio, Backups, and — that annoying, undescriptive category — Other.

How to remove cached files

Now that you know how much space your Other files are taking up, it's time to reduce their footprint on your Mac. You can start by removing items you don't need, including caches for your web browser, saved Apple Music streams, and photo previews.

A note on deleting cache folders: You only want to delete old and unnecessary files, as current cache files store your preferences. We strongly recommend only deleting cache files from old apps.

  1. Click on your desktop or select the Finder icon from the Dock.
  2. Select the Go menu in the upper left corner of the screen.
  3. Click on Go to Folder.

  4. Type ~/Library/caches into the text box. A list of caches from active apps will appear on your desktop.

    Macs may be a far less tempting target for malware and viruses, but they’re not immune from attack. Best free mac cleaning software 2019 download. Even if you don’t care about or being used as a, it’s still possible to fall victim to, password theft, or.Accordingly, good antivirus software will protect your Mac on all of these fronts. It’ll catch malware that’s still spreading or in circulation; block ransomware; protect older systems with out-of-date software from security vulnerabilities; prevent your Mac from acting as a carrier for malware aimed at other operating systems; and keep infected files off of any virtual machines you’re running.Updated 05/04/20: Added a link to our review of.

  5. Select the app folder you wish to remove the cache from.
  6. Right-click (or control-click) on the app folder.
  7. Select Move to Trash.

How to remove downloaded files

Chances are, your Downloads folder is stuffed with Other-type files, including installer packages, documents, and folders you have already made copies of somewhere else. If you want to make some room on your Mac, it may be time to clean out your Downloads folder.

  1. Click on your desktop or select the Finder icon from the Dock.
  2. Select the Go menu in the upper left corner of the screen.
  3. Click on Downloads.

  4. Select the file you wish to remove.
  5. Right-click (or control-click) on the file.
  6. Select Move to Trash.

If you want to save a file from the Downloads folder but don't want it clogging your drive, consider moving it to an external hard drive or flash drive, or uploading it to an online storage option like Dropbox.

How to delete old device backups in iTunes

If you tend to get new iOS devices fairly regularly, you may have unnecessary device backups stored on your computer via iTunes. Backups take up 4-5GB each, on average; there's no need to hold on to older device backups if you no longer have the device or have it stored in iCloud.

Third-party software that can help

While you don't need any third-party app to 'clean' your Mac, there are some very handy system access tools out there that make it easier to regularly remove unwanted files.

CleanMyMac 3

With CleanMyMac, you have easy access to a list of features that help you keep your Mac free of unnecessary junk. It scans your entire system and recommends files you should delete based on how old they are and whether they are considered unnecessary to your workflow. It's a lot like Apple's Optimized Storage, but with a few additional features. My favorite is the recommendation to delete all content related to an application. Sometimes, you'll end up with a couple of files left behind by an app when you delete it. CleanMyMac provides a one-button purge of everything associated with that app.

DaisyDisk

DaisyDisk scans your Mac and gives you a pie chart that makes it easy to see what files are using up the most space. You can identify files that are in the Other storage category and drag them to the delete box.

Onyx

Onyx is a robust Mac system access tool that, in-part, can delete caches, logs, temporary items, and other files that find their way into the Other storage category.

Cocktail

Cocktail is another useful system access tool that you can use to clear caches, purge memory, and manage hidden Apple app settings, which might be automatically sending files into the Other category abyss.

Questions?

Still having trouble with Other? Let us know in the comments.

Updated June, 2018: Updated the section on deleting iPhone and iPad backups in iTunes to direct people to the article about doing that. The rest of these steps are still correct.

macOS Catalina

Main

We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.

The verdict is in

Apple's $14.9 billion tax bill overturned by EU court

The General Court of the European Union has delivered its judgment against Apple and Ireland over a $14.5 billion tax bill.