OnyX is a toolkit full of low-level system utilities. Not just cache cleaning, but lots of other things.
You can create a real mess if you just randomly click on actions, however. So I wouldn’t recommend using it if you don’t know what you’re doing.
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That is the impression I had last time I looked, and yet it seems to be used successfuly by people who admit they don’t know what it does. Perhaps it has some guard rails. I will look at it again.
There is a user’s guide (Help → OnyX Help), which explains what the different actions do, and the various screens do have have warnings.
So, if you read the directions (not always a valid assumption) and make sure you understand what it is going to do…
It won’t break macOS itself, but cleaning the wrong things might have unexpected side effects. For instance, if you delete local snapshots and Time Machine develops a problem, you won’t have a way to recover recent changes.
I use OnyX only for specific reasons and targeted specifically for a given purpose. It doesn’t try to do too much - it doesn’t pretend to be an application removal tool or or try and find malware.
But I agree that is a tool that you should know what you’re doing before using it. That should be the case for all of those “cleaner” or “optimizer” tools, but they position themselves as not needing to know what they do to use them. Which can lead to really strange problems surfacing.
In case you can’t tell, I’m not a fan of these kinds of tools. Even less if it wants to run things in the background.
I am a new user of CleanMyMac after being a sceptic for many years. I decided to use it to clear out lots of crud when preparing for a new Mac.
So far I am impressed with its features and UI. For example it allows preview of recommended actions such as updating older apps and selecting which caches to clear. I agree it is important to be careful about these choices.
(see my post below about a bug with Preview)
I use Windows and Mac. I’ve always found Windows uninstalls most apps rather well, except for some leftover registries or desktop icons. Adobe was always a nuisance and most needed to get Adobe “uninstaller” directly from Adobe (CC Cleaner…).
However, on the Mac, I’ve yet to find a utility that “cleans” or even isolates out all old files, resources, preferences, etc. Mostly this is related to updating/upgrading your mac and not clean installs of the OS and Applications.
I still find Stuffit preferences or some preference or ~/library files leftover from a long ago application or version no longer installed.
As some have clarity in their post here, Apple has made changes from the past, and previous devs not always followed a proper install. Some today, allow the mounting of the disk image, then drag the app icon to the “app folder” icon in the image, or doubleclick and installation starts. And the pop up to keep older version or replace, doesn’t necessarily clean up prior versions.
I’ve used apps like Cocktail (forgot about Tidbits deal) and stopped using it years ago due to cost and some “I forget” issue. I have Diskwarrior but that doesn’t work with APFS changes and a tool no longer really critical unless I encounter HFS+ volume issues. Disk Utility works better but doesn’t do the heavy lifting that something like Drive Genius used to.
As for cleaning, I wish there was something like Crap Cleaner aka CCleaner for the Mac, but also archived changes. Or a system that found old files (more than 1-2years old) with no application associated, then put in a folder to validate or archive off.
I’m not a dev, and not sure if there was any tool that allows one to drag/drop an application and it builds an index of all files it creates and locations…
(And you can’t just go by file dates e.g. Automator…which I have its automations dating from 2010…or Arduino that I used back in 2014 and never removed because the person I was working on a project for, the late Roger Cook aka designer of International Symbols, left this world before I could test with him…, or Aviator browser that I tried and removed due to it having “super secure browser is insecure!” but just found a folder in my Library..LOL.. removed that manually! And then I find Adobe Frameworks that I have no idea what for. I will remove and see if something breaks…which my only Adobe app of late is Acrobat Reader since Preview isn’t best with some PDF forms from online accounts like medical or legal that print blank unless I use Acrobat.)
Ah to have another duplicate mac, fresh start on it and install all that I use…grrr I do but I migrated from a TM backup…to have my keys, pwds, etc. LOL..
I seem to have come across a bug with the latest CleanMyMac update (5.7.1). I have reported it to Macpaw.
After a quick scan when I selected an item such as App Updates a review screen appeared, as expected. However the Back and Done buttons do not work and there appears to be no way to exit that screen. I had to Force Quit the app to proceed.
Fortunately I managed to restore version 5.6.1 from a Time Machine back up and the app is now working correctly.
My recommendation is to avoid updating CleanMyMac for now.