Summary: Still worry about your insufficient Mac storage? Want to speed up Mac but don't know how? Get the 6 free Mac cleaners to clear disk space, clean junk or duplicate files to free up your Mac.
Many of us know exactly how to clean Windows computer or Android phone, but when it comes to cleaning Mac, few people know about it. Many Apple users think that, there is no need to clean Mac.
However, with more and more junk files occupying your Mac storage, your Mac will slow down and offer a bad performance. You have to rely on some Mac cleaner software to remove all useless data.
Best Free Mac Cleaners
CleanMyMac is a powerful Mac cleaner, speed booster, and health guard, designed to help your Mac run at full throttle again. Remove large and old files, uninstall apps. Wipe your Mac carefully. If the exterior of your Mac is visibly wet, it may help to wipe it with a clean, dry cloth. You can also try drying any ports or vents using a non-conductive instrument such as a cotton bud. Wait for 48 hours.
With so many Mac cleaner tools offered on the market, which one you should use? Do you know how to choose a great Mac cleaner? We have tested more than 20 Mac cleaners and select the 6 best ones for you to choose from. You can pick your preferred Free Mac cleaner to speed up your Mac easily and quickly.
No.1 Free Mac cleaner: CCleaner - Free junk file cleaner
CCleaner is one free and top Mac cleaner to delete cookies, search history, temporary files and junk files from Mac. The specific functions are below:
1. Find and remove useless/junk files with the click of a button so your Mac can run faster. Speed up boot times with easy management of Startup items.
2. Clear up your recycle bin, temporary files and folders, broken permissions and others. If you want to remove installed programs, just click one button.
3. Erase your browser search history and cookies so you can browse any Internet confidentially and your identity remains anonymous.
Test Clean My Mac Computer
No.2 Free Mac cleaner: Disk Inventory X – Free disk cleaner for Mac
Disk Inventory X is one disk cleaning software and disk usage utility for Mac. With this free Mac cleaner, you can know where your disk space has gone and clean it safely. Just see more about Disk Inventory X.
1. Disk Inventory X shows the sizes of files and folders in a special graphical way.
2. With this Mac cleaner, you can see different files marked with different colors, to help you easily find what you want to delete.
No.3 Free Mac cleaner: AVG Cleaner – Free hidden clutter cleaner
AVG Cleaner is one free Mac cleaner to clean hidden clutter and forgotten duplicates. You can see the detailed information below:
1. Clear more hidden garbage, log, download history and trash bin for freeing up more space on your Mac.
2. Search more duplicate files, including images, music, videos and folders.
3. Created for Mac and easy to use.
4. There is an anti-virus software called AVG AntiVirus for Mac, you can use it to protect Macs on your and your families.
No.4 Free Mac cleaner: OmniDiskSweeper - Free hard drive cleaner
OmniDiskSweeper is one free Mac cleaner to find and delete big files that taking up hard drive space and also it can help you recover lost disk space.
1. OmniDiskSweeper helps you sort every file on your Mac by size and you can identify the biggest file to delete it.
2. After deleting, remaining space and folders are recalculated.
No.5 Free Mac cleaner: Dr. Cleaner – Free memory, disk, system cleaner
Dr. Cleaner is one free Mac cleaning app to offer Memory Optimization, Disk Cleaning and System Monitoring to keep your Mac optimized for the best performance.
1. Smart and accurate selection for duplicates scan and remove on Mac with OS X 10.6.6 or later.
2. Scanned big files and junk files will be deleted easily from your Mac.
3. You can easily view real-time network usage and CPU usage in the Menu bar.
No.6 Free Mac cleaner: Disk Drill
Disk Drill is one very popular free Mac cleaner app. Actually, it is a professional data recovery tool for Mac, which carries some disk cleaning functions. It has the capability to analyze Mac storage space, locate unused, large, and duplicate files and so on. In this way, it enables you to free up your Mac storage effortlessly.
1. Monitor the health of your Mac storage and offer timely alerts.
2. Find and remove duplicate files in multiple locations on Mac.
3. Analyze disk space, locate unused files and space hogs, free up storage.
Professional Mac cleaner recommendation:
With the best 6 Mac cleaner apps above, you can handily remove some junk files and optimize your Mac performance. But some of them only offer trial features. Here you are recommended to directly choose the professional Mac cleaner below:
Cleanmymac 3 Test
Mac Cleaner- Scan and delete junk files including cache data and logs, email attachments, unwanted iTunes backup and app localization.
- Delete large and old documents and selectively remove worthless files.
- Clean duplicated files or folders on Mac.
- Uninstall apps and clean associated files safely.
- Monitor Mac system in disk utilization, battery status, memory performance and CPU usage.
- Compatible with iMac, Mac Pro, MacBook (Air/Pro) in the latest macOS Big Sur.
Clean Up My Mac
FAQs of Free Mac Cleaner
How do I clean and optimize my Mac?
Download and install Aiseesoft Mac Cleaner. Click Cleaner and you can clean up your Mac by cleaning system junk, iPhoto junk, email junk, similar photos, iTunes junk, trash bin, large & old files and more.
Why is my Mac so slow?
The reason that why is your Mac so slow may includes there is no enough hard drive or RAM on Mac. Or there is too many startup items or icon clutter on desktop. Perhaps your macOS is outdated and you should update it.
Does Catalina slow down your Mac?
No. Catalina won’t slow down an old Mac. You can check to make sure if your Mac is compatible with macOS Catalina.
By now, 6 free Mac cleaners have been shared here. You can choose your preferred Mac cleaner according to your need. Please share it in comment if you have any better Mac cleaner recommendation. Check ere if you want to speed up your slow iPhone.
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Excellent
Rating: 4.8 / 5 (based on 238 ratings)
December 29, 2020 17:50 / Updated by Louisa White to Mac Cleanup
At a Glance
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Helpful Manu Bar utility
- Several helpful modules to free up storage space or to clear out unnecessary software
Our Verdict
Best Prices Today
MacPaw has shot for the stars with its new version of CleanMyMac X, its catch-all Mac utility that serves as a software crud and gunk remover, as well as a malware scanner, macOS extensions manager, and a universal updater for your installed applications.
Since my initial review of CleanMyMac X, MacPaw made some nice improvements, although some features still fall short of what they could be.
Handy modules
MacPaw set out to make its Menu Bar utility much better and has succeeded. A quick click on the icon reveals handy information such as how much space is left on each of your drive partitions, your Mac’s CPU load, how much RAM is available, your computer’s operating temperature, and other useful information. This is a nice touch and the menu can be customized as you see fit.
The modules are the key to CleanMyMac and it’s handy to be able to quickly enable and disable macOS extensions with the Extensions module, or hunt down extraneous files with the Large & Old Files module, which lets you see which files are devouring space and erase them quickly. The Uninstaller module was able to quickly locate and pick off unnecessary applications during testing and accomplished something I’d never seen before in an application removal utility: it removed multiple applications at once, which is quite useful. The Maintenance module handles tasks such as clearing RAM, running maintenance scripts, clearing the DNS cache, and repairing file permissions quickly, tidying up the macOS’ underpinnings as needed.
CleanMyMac X 4.4.1’s new claim to fame is the Space Lens module, which offers a quick look at your hard drive’s most sizable folders. This is where the truth as to what’s eating your drive space comes out, as a 73GB Pictures folder inside your Users folder could stand to be slimmed down a bit.
Malware removal
Unfortunately, the Malware Removal module shot the previous version of CleanMyMac X in the foot, and in the latest version, it does so yet again. MacPaw cites extensive changes to this feature, and I was curious to try it. After installing every questionable piece of adware and malware I could find, I ran the Malware Removal module to see what the utility would find, categorize as suspect, and what it would remove.
The results were not what I had hoped for. In spite of CleanMyMac X 4.4.1 locating 21 potential threats, it missed several suspect programs, including the infamous MacKeeper and Advanced Mac Cleaner, which, once installed, loads itself into your Mac’s startup items, informs you of how many threats it’s noticed, then offers a phone number to call for 24/7 live tech support.
Upon noticing the malware that was still left over after rebooting, I switched over to a free copy of Malwarebytes, which picked up 11 threats during its scan, including questionable applications such as Advanced Mac Cleaner, Advanced Mac Tuner, and MacKeeper, and proceeded to tear them out by the roots.
Clean My Mac
Even with CleanMyMac X 4.4.1 and Malwarebytes working together, there were some chunks of adware and malware that still needed to be hunted down and removed on their own. A search engine utility had to manually remove from the Safari > Preferences > Extensions settings and a questionable PDF reader had to be uninstalled through CleanMyMac X 4.4.1’s Uninstaller module, which became another chore.
Neither CleanMyMac X 4.4.1 or Malwarebytes was perfect for the task at hand, but after months of development and promises of significant releases and improvements in this feature, the end result was a letdown. Granted, MacPaw isn’t working to be a malware prevention or security company, but they’ve touted this feature as a prominent component of CleanMyMac X and I feel that it gave far too much questionable software a complete pass, leaving behind software that will happily change your search engine settings to route your web traffic through questionable engines or inform you that your Mac is entirely infected and only a strange firm that charges $30 a month to remotely “clean” your Mac is to be trusted.
CleanMyMac X retails for $34.95 for a one-year subscription or $89.95 as a one-time payment for a single user; the MacPaw store offers different purchase tiers depending on license needs. The software is also available in a trial version, which lets you test its modules and clean up to 500MB of system junk at a time.
Bottom line
CleanMyMac X 4.4.1 has seen some nice improvements and it’s a reliable, speedy way to remove gigabytes of gunk from your hard drive. Its Uninstaller and Updater modules have become admirable in their functionality and utility, but the Malware module is still a wash and five months of development haven’t brought it to a level where I’d feel comfortable recommending it to other Mac users for its intended purpose.