Cleaning System

I've had many troubles with this, such as knowing which files i can delete and wont screw up the computer, and after trying to get rid of apps, i know they must be leaving some sort of trail behind.. anybody know how to get rid of this crap, and completely clean the system? I'm mostly a windows native, but i have a powerbook, and im trying to clean it up..

Hmm. What I usually do to "clean" up is basically run one of the many maintenance apps around, such as Onyx,

MacJanitor

http://forums.xisto.com/
or Yasu (Yasu is the one I use, but I've tried the other two before), to basically run the cron scripts, and to repair permissions, reset logs and optimize the system.

Then I go manually into, first my home folder's library, and search in certain folders, specifically the Application Support folder and the preferences folder, and basically look for any program that I had already deleted, and then just the delete the files or folder. When I first got my Powerbook I used to go into every single folder of my Library, just to see what's inside, to familiarize myself. Most of the time if the thing is something you don't recognize (not a program that you had deleted) you probably shouldn't touch it.

Then I move up to my computer's library folder (since I'm the administrator of my computer) and do the same thing (note there will be less things to delete, because most programs install themselves only in your home folder) and then finally, just pop into the library folder inside the System folder to take a look, there are almost never traces of programs there. Note that if you're unsure of your way around the Mac as yet, I suggest just going in and taking a look, instead of happy go lucky deleting files from the library folders, especially if it's your computer's one, and ESPECIALLY be careful of the library folder inside your system folder, that one mostly contain OS library files, you don't want to be fooling around there unless you're very certain of yourself.

To be honest, there really ISn't much to clean up on the Mac, I do this routine maybe once in three months, when I remember? My powerbook just feels cleaner after it, it doesn't necessarily speed up by quite a lot, mostly because the Mac OS is clever enough to clean itself up on a everyday basis, not like Windows which likes to leave ugly traces in the registry and stuff. On the mac it's usually as easy as deleting a file, not like plunging yourself into the registry deleting lines of code or something. So don't worry too much about cleaning up the files, I would try one of those maintenance apps though, for starters, or just repairing permissions would help tons.

Hope this helps...

thanks chiiyo for the feedback, definately will help, because the only way i was aware of cleaning this crap out was going through each file individually.. like i want to clean out all the apps i never use and ****, and folders in the root dir, without having the whole system crash..

It's always good to know what is inside your hard drive and get rid of unwanted files, especially if you want to keep your system trim.

Take a look at DeLocalizer which removes unwanted language files from the computer. The default is set to keep English files. Depending on the number of programs, this can clean out a gig of unwanted files.

If you have one, backing up your mac to an external hard drive so that you can wipe your mac's hard drive is one way to get out the junk that accumulates. It does seem extreme, but many mac users have told me that they do this once a year just to keep their mac in top operating form. It does take time and patience.

If you have the original cds for your mac, then maybe you should dump programs you aren't using. Do you use Quicken? Using that free AOL and Earthlink internet stuff that routinely is slapped on new computers? Do you use the browsers that are on there?

Chilyo is right. Looking at what is inside those folders, you get an idea of what you are using and what you can remove without causing problems.

I use MacJanitor myself. The mac is set to automatically at 3 am and unless it is on, certain routine cron routines can't be run. MacJanitor does it for me at the click of a mouse.

What kind of mac do you have? I have an iBook.

I have PowerBook G4 running on OS X 10.3.5

First, I would highly recommend doing the software update and downloading the OS10.3.9, which I believe is a free upgrade; however, the upgrade is not that critical.Second, If you are deleting an application, such as garage band, it is safe to delete the corresponding folder in ~/library/"application support". These support files can get very large for certain apps. For example, Garage Band stores all of its loops in the application support file, thus it starts at about 1.2 gigs (Not certain about that number, I've deleted it from my machine).Third, the only real tracks that would be left behind on an apple would be aliases and .plists. Aliases must be deleted as you find them, and there is no real easy way to do it other than searching and deleting. However an application's .plist is always safe to delete (note that if you aren't delete the application, you will lose all preferences). This is located in "~/library/preferences" and "/library/preferences", and will be named something like "com.apple.garageband.plist"