It's bad enough that most Apple professional users consider it malware.
*** The official 2023 and 2024 Mac mini thread (it has the M2 chip, the M4 chip and everything!) ***
- Thread starter Feek
- Start date
OK, so what would be a good option to give to my parents to just press a button and do some tidying up every now and then?
They don't need to do any tidying up from time to time.
I wish that were true, but I need something that they can easily just turf stuff out of finder and their downloads folder.
Soldato
My only other foray in MacOS was a MacBook Air M1 base model with 8gb of memory, when that first came out, and that managed everything I wanted it to do where video editing with DaVinci Resolve was the most taxing task for it. I sold it to someone at work, earlier this year, as I always end up not using a laptop because I do prefer to sit at a desk and I doubt I'll ever buy a laptop again. For the sofa I have my iPad Pro.
So I'm thinking the base model will be ideal for me with it's 16gb of memory and 256gb ssd as I'll buy a 2tb nvme and an enclosure for a lot less than the Apple upgrade tax to increase the size of the ssd.
So I'm thinking the base model will be ideal for me with it's 16gb of memory and 256gb ssd as I'll buy a 2tb nvme and an enclosure for a lot less than the Apple upgrade tax to increase the size of the ssd.
Caporegime
I ran CleanMyMac for years...then one day my Mac starting to crash during boot up....turned out it was CleanMyMac.
It just clutter more than it is useful, like most of these freeware are. I don't run any of it now, no anti-virus, no firewall. Just a VPN.
If I don't use an app, I just uninstall it.
It just clutter more than it is useful, like most of these freeware are. I don't run any of it now, no anti-virus, no firewall. Just a VPN.
If I don't use an app, I just uninstall it.
Corrected that for you.
If you need to clear the downloads folder, simply select all the files and drop in trash. There's no requirement for a pice of software to do that for you.
What you could do is set up some automation using Alfred which can do that (and many other things) for you.
Soldato
It doesn't me either, but it's clearly pushed them to move to a 16GB base memory model, so assuming it's going to use some of that - I don't know how configurable it is and what you can turn off etc.
Soldato
I was thinking of using AI to generate pictures so I can post "why don't pictures like this ever trend" threads on Facebook.
OK but what you're not getting is that I can't do that, I can't and won't dedicate a signifcant portion of my time any longer to my mother complaining that her pc is slowing down or that she's running out of space - Moving them to mac is an attempt to mitigate that. I need to be able to provide them a way to be able to clear those things themselves. If I wanted to continue to drive across town all the time just to clear a folder, i'd buy them both a new windows desktop.
A Mac won't slow down by not doing any regular maintenance.
Does she download so much that she's going to fill the SSD? Create a simple bash script that empties the downloads directory and put a shortcut for it on the desktop.
Does she download so much that she's going to fill the SSD? Create a simple bash script that empties the downloads directory and put a shortcut for it on the desktop.
Soldato
Even better, in Settings -> General -> Storage there are options to optimise storage and delete items from the bin automatically after 30 days.
My friend, she downloads so much nonsense on her pc currently and I don't know how she does it. she's downloaded videos from Facebook, and I didn't even know you could download video from Facebook! exe files, downloads from emails. my mother's not just a menace, she's a nightmare.
You know it never occurred to me to me that I could just use automator to solve a bunch of problems.
You're a genius.
Caporegime
That depends entirely on what you are using it for. If you spec a mac that is overkill for your workload and it costs you a fortune thats your fault. For professionals who make a living on their machines and time is money, no, they are not a rip off.
Soldato
As @Throrik says, you can enable 'Empty Trash automatically' under the Storage (in General Settings) 'Recommendations' section. If you need to delete anything else then you can always use Automator or bash script as someone else mentioned.
I would get AppCleaner and use it for uninstalls (helps remove crud apps leave behind) and, if your mother is trigger happy with the downloads then MalwareBytes might not be a bad shout given the increasing amount of malware and ransomware floating around for MacOS now.
If you want a maintenance app then there is OnyX but it's not something i would let the average joe access to.
Soldato
My M4 Pro mini has moved to preparing for shipment.
Soldato
Mine has too.