CCleaner is a registry cleaning and software uninstallation service from Piriform. It is well reputed among utility programs for its reliability and ease of use. Unlike other registry cleaners. A review of Ccleaner Free Version & it's features. The tutorial walks users through how to use Ccleaner both on a Windows PC and Apple Mac Computers.Window R.
- CCleaner is a tool for keeping your Mac safe which helps you erase this free space by selecting volume and security measures. Large File Finder Here you can specify file size and get rid of them with one click.
- Still, as the CCleaner for Mac covers slightly different functionality and deals with the entirely different operating system, it’s wise to doubt its safety. Although the questions about CCleaner safety are common among users, there is no reason to think that the software will do any harm to your Mac.
Think about it — all of us spend hours on our Macs every day for years. And it’s likely that we don’t always use all the apps properly, store away files in an organized manner, and timely delete everything we don’t need.
Just like any machine, your Mac needs regular maintenance, even if it’s not as regular as one for a PC. The more you use your computer the more errors start to build up, overloaded drive slows down the processor, and resources get stretched too thin. So when you finally can’t stand how slow your Mac has become, you turn to Google for answers, and it might tell you that CCleaner for Mac is the way to go. But is it?
What Is CCleaner And Is CCleaner Good For Macs?
You might initially ask, “What does CCleaner do?” CCleaner is an app originally developed by the British company Piriform and later sold to another Czech company Avast that claims to clean up and optimize your slow computer. The initial version was developed for PCs in 2004, with CCleaner Mac to follow in 2012.
So far so good. Moreover, the CCleaner app has become very popular, supporting millions of accounts and has a limited free version that could be downloaded from its website. The CCleaner professional version is available on an annual subscription basis. Let’s see how exactly CCleaner for Mac can help you bring your machine back to life.
How to use the CCleaner app for Mac
CCleaner works by scanning your Mac for cache files, browsing history logs, cookies, and more, and then running a cleanup tool to remove them all. The software generally doesn’t touch any essential parts of your macOS or any files that are integral to the apps you currently have installed. The whole idea here is to try to clean up unneeded files to help your Mac run better.
Technically, you could even do exactly the same work as the CCleaner Mac app yourself, but it would take you a lot of time to find all those files manually and, unlike CCleaner, you could potentially delete something that should’ve stayed.
Here’s how you’d use the CCleaner app:
- Get a CCleaner download from its official website (either the free version or the professional one)
- Install and launch the app
- In the Cleaner tab, check every option you’d like CCleaner to scan
- Click Analyze
- If you’re satisfied with results ➙ Run Cleaner
If you get the CCleaner professional version, you can enjoy some additional features, such as automatically cleaning your browser history every time you quit it and monitoring low-quality, suspicious files from getting into your system.
Note: Review all files to be deleted carefully, since most of the time CCleaner will also empty Trash and it wouldn’t be possible to retrieve lost files later on.
Is CCleaner safe and other CCleaner reviews
If you’ve just tried the process above — CCleaner for Mac would sound like a great and easy way to keep your Mac optimized. That’s why millions of people have flocked to it over the years.
However, in 2017, the CCleaner app suffered a malicious hacker attack on its 5.33 version for Windows. The hackers were able to create a backdoor and install trojan software that infected around two million users, among which were such prominent companies as Samsung and Intel. The security breach was patched in the next update, but sadly the incident has damaged CCleaner’s reputation forever. After all, it’s difficult to give a company complete access to all your personal files if it has been hacked before.
It should be said that the breach has only affected the Windows version of CCleaner and not the CCleaner Mac app. But again the question comes down to trust.
Free Ccleaner Review
Overall, CCleaner reviews have generally been positive throughout its existence, averaging at about 4.5/5 star rating. And it would seem well deserved if not for that one misstep mentioned above.
A good question now is, “What about CCleaner alternatives?”
The best CCleaner alternative today
Naturally, the CCleaner app is not the only Mac optimization utility on the market, and there are other options for everyone second-guessing, “Is CCleaner safe?” One of the most popular ones is CleanMyMac X.
CleanMyMac X is a powerful Mac optimizer used by millions of people every day that has accumulated outstanding reviews, industry recognition, and, most importantly, has never suffered a single breach.
Generally, CleanMyMac X goes much deeper in its scanning of system junk, especially when it comes to locating unnecessary app cache files. Besides, it features a separate anti-malware scan, privacy controls, file shredder, app updater, and much more.
Interface-wise, CleanMyMac X is extremely friendly and intuitive. Here’s how to use it:
- Launch the app and navigate to System Junk in the sidebar
- Click Scan ➙ Review Details
- Uncheck anything you’re not sure about and hit Clean
The difference between the CCleaner Mac app and CleanMyMac X is astounding. The same Mac tested in the screenshots above got around 500 MB of junk files in CCleaner against 13.4 GB in CleanMyMax X.
That said, there’s also another simple alternative to CCleaner — MacPilot.
Not a specialized Mac optimization software per se, MacPilot is a great complement to one, since it lets you tweak and configure over 1,000 Mac features, from setting up Bluetooth correctly to deciphering error codes to removing useless login items.
Among everything MacPilot has to offer, there are a few really helpful automatic scripts that can perform basic Mac optimization tasks on a regular basis:
- Launch MacPilot
- Navigate to the Maintenance tab
- Choose whether you want the scripts to run daily, weekly, or monthly
- Select databases to update
- Pick which miscellaneous tasks to complete
- Click Run
The good news is you just have to set up MacPilot once and forget about it — while your Mac will be kept well-maintained forever. Besides, feel free to dive into the massive library of improvements MacPilot has to offer whenever you encounter a problem with your Mac.
In the end, now you know what is CCleaner and all the basics about it. If you still trust the company and want to use CCleaner for Mac — that might be a good choice. However, the combination of just two CCleaner alternatives, CleanMyMac X and MacPilot, provides true unparalleled security and the most comprehensive optimization in the industry at the same time.
Best of all, both CleanMyMac X and MacPilot are available to you for free for seven days through the trial of Setapp, a platform with over 150 Mac apps that could help you with any aspect of your digital life, from a speedier Mac to finance management to photo retouching. Sign up for Setapp today, see how much faster and cleaner can your Mac become with the help of CleanMyMac X and MacPilot, and then just try as many other apps as you like. What a deal!
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CCleaner is a utility cleaning program that was created by Piriform. It was designed to deal with various issues related to unwanted files and was initially released for Windows OS back in 2003 and on macOS in 2011. Fun fact for those of you curious what the ‘C’ stands for, the ‘C’ came from the former name of the application — Crap Cleaner, it is safe to say the name change was for the better.
Jokes aside, Piriform’s CCleaner has held a decent reputation among Windows users over the years, however the question that matters today — is CCleaner any good on macOS?
Using CCleaner Features
Unlike most utility applications these days — CleanMyMac, MacFly Pro, MacKeeper — you are not getting a package deal with CCleaner. Pitiform’s utility app mainly focuses on dealing with issues caused by temporary files like corrupted cache, permission errors, etc.
Cleaner
CCleaner puts an emphasis on the Cleaner feature (who would have thought, huh?) which is capable of cleaning caches, logs, cookies, history, and other unneeded files on your Mac. Not only that it deals with all that on macOS’s built-in apps, but also features cleaning of the apps installed on your Mac.
Using the Cleaner feature seems fairly simple and intuitive. You get to manually select what kind of junk you want to remove and which apps to scan. However, once CCleaner is done scanning, there is no way to deselect files from the scan results before cleaning. That feels odd, to say the least. The workaround is to ‘uncheck’ the fields in the column on the left, run another scan, and only then clean. Basically, you will have to take a few steps back if you want to prevent CCleaner from removing some files found during the latest scan.
Important note: It is also worth mentioning, that upon running a full cleanup with all of the fields checked, there was noticeable increase in performance on the Late 2014 Mac Mini used for the test.
Tools
The Tools tab is definitely feels like a supplementary feature which does not seem to bring any new functionality to your Mac cleaning. It is still nice to have though.
Using Tools you can uninstall apps, manage services that start when your Mac boots up, and erase free space (if your Mac uses HDD). Similar features are already built-in to OS X, and CCleaner’s Tools is only a matter of convenience having it in the tab at hand. Yet, these Tools come to use on rare occasions only.
Pricing
If you are interested in Piriform’s CCleaner Mac — download it for free from their website. It’s not entirely an equivalent to leading cleaning software, but it can be a decent alternative if you know what you’re getting into. At the price of $30 you can upgrade to Pro which will unlock ‘Professional’ features that offer automatic cleaning, updating, and support priority. So if automation is your thing, then 30 bucks is the price to pay. Not much to say here.
Is CCleaner Safe to Use?
Even though Piriform’s free app has managed to maintain a good reputation, unlike some of its competitors (looking at you MacKeeper), it is still wise to question its safety.
In the CCleaner’s case, most concern is raised by Windows users, who were the ones to experience issues with Piriform’s registry cleaner feature. Some share that it’s the registry cleaner that makes their system a mess, which is not surprising, as any malfunction in the automated cleanup tool can potentially lead to removal of essential OS files. Luckily, this is not the case for Mac.
The important thing to know is the fact, that there is always a small risk of the tool removing something that it shouldn’t have, or missing a different file that should’ve been erased — automation is not perfect.
How to Uninstall CCleaner from Your Mac
Download Ccleaner For Mac
Granted, CCleaner may not be your cup of tea. If you are looking to remove CCleaner entirely from your Mac — seek no more, here is how to do it. Fortunately, the installer doesn’t infect your Mac with any viruses or malware, and uninstalling Piriform’s cleaning tool is pretty simple. Just follow these steps:
- Quit CCleaner if you have it running. Use Activity Monitor if you have to.
- Head over to Finder>Applications and drag CCleaner app to Trash
- While in Finder, hit Shift+cmd+G, then copy and paste the lines below to go to the following directories:
- ~/Library/Application Support/CCleaner
- ~/Library/Preferences/com.piriform.ccleaner.plist
- Go to Trash and click Empty Trash
The Bottom Line
CCleaner is simple and free to use, it also features a familiar interface for users coming from Windows. On the flip side, it has neither proven to improve the speed of your Mac, nor bring in a set of strong features. So who is Piriform’s CCleaner for? It’s a great free app that let’s you clean cache and uninstall apps from a single interface, however if you are looking for something more advanced capable of improving your Mac’s performance, then CCleaner is not the app to settle for.