One click for a neat Mac

MacPaw’s CleanMyMac X is a one-stop app that keeps your Mac hassle-free even if you don’t want to get under the software hood yourself. The user-friendly user interface makes many features easy to use when needed and easy to hide when you’re not. Here’s what you should know.

When was the last time you cleaned your Mac storage? If the response is slightly less than a week, you would benefit from simply cleaning CleanMyMac X. Click a few buttons and get a clean Mac.

Setup and user interface: Neat and tidy

To install CleanMyMac X, download the installer for free from MacPaw and drag the .dmg file to the Applications folder. Wait for the installation to complete, then run CleanMyMac X.

With a nicely crafted user interface (user interface) that is easy to navigate in front of you, setup is almost complete (and already completed if you use the free version). If you have an activation license, do so by clicking the Unlock Full Version button. Now select Activate Now and enter the license key you received — if you’re interested but need to purchase the full version, click Buy Plan to view current offers and prices (more on that later).

You are all ready and ready to beautify your Mac. Similar “cleaning” applications tend to turn into complicated and questionable software practices, failing to inform you about what they are doing on your personal computer. CleanMyMac X is far at the other end of the spectrum.

It gives you an overview of what each function does and allows you to dive deeper into the details if you wish. You can see exactly what CleanMyMac X removes, installs or updates, and turn off any of that with a check mark in the checkbox. Of course, if you’d rather give up reading and just click one button to clean and optimize your Mac, you can do the same.

Tip: Some CleanMyMacX operations require you to grant the application full disk access (this is optional). You can do this by clicking Approved Access and following the on-screen instructions.

I also appreciate the simple, clearly visible navigation menu located at the top of the app. CleanMyMac X never feels like the maze you’re trying to find your way through; you know exactly where you are and what you are using at any given time.

For even greater ease of use, when the application window is minimized, you can use the CleanMyMac X icon on the top toolbar of your Mac to monitor the health performance and storage of your Mac (this is easy to hide or close and is not invasive to other screen elements ).

Function overview: everything you need, then something

The functionality package in CleanMyMac X is impressive. This isn’t just a piece of software that deletes your temporary files and browsing history and then claims that your Mac is faster by an order of magnitude.

CleanMyMac X can help you update your macOS version and applications, clear your RAM, remove annoying applications that try to stay open in background processes, and more, all from a single user interface. If you’re not sure what to start with, consult the Assistant in the upper right corner for suggestions.

Smart Scan

Smart Scan is your one-click cleaning tool. Click Scan and let CleanMyMac X do its magic. The app will see what it can do to clean up your disk space, protect your Mac from all the potential threats it faces, and speed up its performance.

Clicking on any of the icons will generate additional details about the actions that will occur when you click Run.

Smart Scan is best for quick weekly cleaning to make sure your Mac stays in top condition — if you want deeper cleaning, check out other cards.

Cleaning

System Junk aims to speed up your Mac by removing temporary files (user cache files, system log files, etc.) and resolving debugging errors. As with most other processes on CleanMyMac X, just click Scan, View Details if you want, and then select Clean to free up disk space.

Email Attachments deletes email downloads and attachments stored on your local machine (all attachments will still be available through your inbox) to make room on your drive.

“Trash Kate” empties files that you’ve moved to various trash cans, but haven’t deleted yet. They still take up storage space on your Mac – get rid of them in two clicks with CleanMyMac X.

Protection

“Malware Removal” searches your Mac for any unusual or malicious activity and provides a complete report of any files it finds suspicious. After scanning my Mac, a single threat was discovered. Immediately interested and somewhat concerned, I looked at the entire report to discover the nasty, barbaric cyber weapon that ran on my MacBook Pro 2016 – it was an Adobe Flash Player installation file.

Although the malware tool has detected something harmless on its radar, I would rather mark an innocent app as potentially dangerous than not let me know when a real threat appears. However, if you’re concerned, you may want to consider running another antivirus application for your Mac.

“Privacy” takes care of your online footprint by clearing your browser history, allowing you to edit application permissions (do you know which applications are allowed to access your camera?), Displaying all cookies from each browser you use and performing other similar functions.

I am a big fan of the control that CleanMyMac X gives you during cleaning. If you want to delete all saved cookies from Safari, you can click on one button and do it. But if there are only a few you want to get rid of, scroll through the list and highlight individual items.

Speed

“Optimization” monitors applications that run at startup, helping you to disable all those that have become particularly annoying. It also aggregates applications that consume huge amounts of processing power, known as “heavy consumers”. If any application significantly slows down your Mac, it will appear here.

Maintenance is an extremely useful card and somewhat unique to CleanMyMac X. Here you can free up RAM, run maintenance scripts that rotate system logs, re-index Spotlight Search, fix disk errors, and more. Read the tooltips to decide which processes are best to run on your Mac.

Applications

Uninstaller breaks down all the applications on your Mac according to how many you use, which platforms they come from (App Store, Steam, etc.) and which vendor distributes them. It also displays “leftovers”, which are leftovers from files you’ve previously uninstalled. You can then completely remove these applications or leftovers from a single card to restore disk space.

Updater checks for version mismatches between apps on your local computer and the latest release on the App Store. If something is outdated, you can update it here.

“Extensions” takes care of your Spotlight Search add-ons, Safari extensions, settings panes, and shared Internet add-ons. If you’ve recently installed an extension that makes access to your browser a headache, you can safely disable it with this tool.

Files

Space Lens scans your drive and shows you which applications and files take up the most space on your Mac. Broken into folders such as “Applications” and “System”, it is easy to jump to different parts of the warehouse and clean the cobweb.

“Large and old files” is similar to Space Lens, but shows files that you haven’t touched in a long time. Instead of allowing these forgotten files to take up storage space, get rid of them with CleanMyMac X. Again, this section is classified into useful folders such as “Archives”, “Documents”, “A year ago”, etc. to help you find your way around your ride.

“Shredder” completely removes all data that you consider unwanted, leaving no traces. This is a simple, handy tool that ensures you free up as much disk space when deleting large applications or folders.

Performance, results and comparison

My MacBook Pro 2016 uses a 500GB hard drive (HDD). HDDs are not the fastest by data read / write standards. Still, CleanMyMac X works quickly and efficiently to review your data, read what you need, and ignore what doesn’t.

You have control over how much disk access you give to CleanMyMac Xu and you can change it at any time. If you want to grant full disk access to run a specific module such as Mail Attachments, you can temporarily enable and disable it as soon as the process is complete. In that case, CleanMyMac X wouldn’t have full disk access for long: this app is fast.

Some operations take longer, such as Smart Scan (which runs multiple processes at once), but most have scanned and cleaned my Mac within 60 seconds. No one wants to free up disk space for hours, which makes the segmented CleanMyMac X processes so convenient – if you know you just need to shred a few old files, there’s no need to waste time browsing your Safari cookies.

I try to take decent care of my Mac, so it wasn’t slow to get started. I haven’t noticed any major speed improvements since running CleanMyMac X because of this — but I’ve cleared over 11GB of disk space, better understood what my online privacy footprint looks like, and gained confidence that my Mac runs almost as smoothly as possible.

When it comes to comparison with similar applications, CleanMyMac X stands out for several reasons. Mac “cleaning” applications are not new, there are many available on the market. But what I think most of them are losing my interest in and causing suspicion is how little they inform the user about which process their application is running at any given time.

Take MacCleaner Pro, for example. A decent comprehensive application for your Mac, but it’s not clear what’s going on in the background to speed up or clean your computer.

CleanMyMac X is the opposite, and I praise their transparency in that regard. I have not come across a similar application that corresponds to the level of simplicity, efficiency and lucidity of CleanMyMac X.

Need to buy a CleanMyMac X?

I recommend CleanMyMac X if you do not regularly review and select your data manually. If you want to click a button or two and have more space on your Mac, CleanMyMac X is definitely the app for it. You’ll also know exactly what’s going on with your machine every step of the way, thanks to helpful tooltips, a built-in assistant, and a progress meter.

There are several payment methods for CleanMyMac X: there is a 1-year subscription plan starting at $ 39.95 for 1 Mac and a one-time purchase plan starting at $ 89.95 for 1 Mac. You can also purchase plans that cover two or five Mac devices in the form of a subscription or one-time purchase. You can also try the free version, which limits functionality but gives you a decent overall feel of the CleanMyMac X.

Be sure to check if you can apply any discounts, MacPaw has solid offers. For example, if you switch from another scrub app, you can get a 40% discount on your order. If you can get a discount, I think it’s absolutely worth a one-time purchase for a constantly clean Mac.