How to Thoroughly Clean Your Mac with Movavi Mac Cleaner 2

This is a sponsored article and was made possible by Movavi Software, the makers of Mac Cleaner. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author, who maintains editorial independence, even when a post is sponsored.

When you have a fresh install of any OS, you have a machine working at the peak of its operational efficiency. For months it’s the fastest and most satisfying machine it will ever be. Then the “bit rot” sets in.

In reality, what most people call “bit rot” is a perfectly natural, but steady, accretion of junk, temporary clutter and other rubbish in your system. In any system (like the engine in your car), this prevents it from working as efficiently as it could. Memory caches, temporary Internet files and leftovers from old installations conspire to tie up disc space and slow down your Mac.

In this article we look at Mac Cleaner 2 from Movavi which helps you fend off the bit rot and clutter and restores your Mac to the peak of health with a minimum of effort.

Make a Clean Sweep

Getting the clutter out of your system and performing optimisation can of course be done manually, but that is a steep learning curve, and it’s much better and quicker if you can find a reliable utility.

Mac Cleaner 2 from Movavi is just that. The software has a few different modes you can choose from the tabs down the left side. Initially the system cleanup, trash cleanup and unused languages scan identifies the most obvious things which can go. If you want to keep another language supported on your machine, you can select the language support you want to keep using the cog button on the main screen.

After the initial scan, you can click the “Start Cleaning” button and all the temporary files and other clutter will be automatically removed. Most of the time you will be done right there, but there are some additional cleaning and speed improvements that you can deploy.

Disc usage scans your machine and reports on the items which may be using up too much drive space. For example, in the scan above there are some large Raspberry Pi installations that could probably go. Simply click the checkbox to tick the items you want to remove and then click the “Remove” button.

The next tab is the Duplicate Files mode. Your machine will be scanned again, this time to find any files that may be identical. Obviously one of the things which fills a computer up faster than almost anything else is multiple versions of the same file.

You will be informed of the files which may be duplicates and choose to delete one of them by checking the box and choosing “Delete”. Once again, it’s a LOT easier to seek and destroy these files this way than it is to hunt for them manually.

Another disc space leak is large and old files. Scanning for these presents you with a list of files you have in all probability forgotten about, and highlighting them as a list like this reminds you to rethink whether you need to keep them or junk them.

Next, if you are running OS 10.10 and above, you can use the Uninstaller tab to safely, and more importantly, completely remove apps you are no longer using. Mac apps generally are all packaged into just one container in the applications directory – that is if the developer follows the rules. But of course a few people don’t and store files elsewhere. Plus, there may be configuration files and .plists lurking about. Removing all parts of a program is essential both to save space and make sure you can cleanly install the program again, should you wish to, without having any legacy settings returning from the grave.

These are the Leftovers, files which formerly belonged to an app but are now orphans in your system. The more space you can save the better, especially as you need to have about 30% of your system disc free for memory paging.

And speaking of that the next tab is Memory Cleanup. No, this is not the hardware memory you have installed but the disc-based memory caches which can litter your drive. If a program terminates or your computer crashes, then sometimes you can get huge tracts of drive space filled with memory files which are no longer attached to an app. This tab helps you clean up your memory by giving you the means to scan and free up that drive space, but it also has a real-time meter of how much is being used. This is one of the most useful modes in this software.

The final tab is Startup Optimisation to help you organise and optimise what runs on startup and help you discover if one of these items is eating your memory.

As well as the above tools, there are also some firewall and antivirus features built into the software which may be good options if you don’t already have those things covered by other apps. The option is there, and by default they are deactivated, so you can choose to use them if you like.

Conclusion

Mac Cleaner 2 has a businesslike utilitarian look and feel. The different modes of the cleaner work well, and although they keep a lot of the working details away from the user, you can if you like drill down a little bit and have some manual control if you must.

It’s a fine addition to your Mac housekeeping toolkit and quite cost-effective, too, as for a short while the full version costs just £29.95, which is quite a bit cheaper than competing products. If you want to try out Movavi Mac Cleaner 2 and see if it’s for you, then follow this link and download your copy.

Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, then please feel free to put them in the comments below.

Movavi Mac Cleaner 2