Free Junk File Cleaner For Mac

1. Aug 11, 2021 The first thing you need to do is of course to have the program downloaded and installed on your Mac. PowerMyMac Scan your Mac quickly and clean junk files easily. Check the primary status of your Mac including the disk usage, CPU status, memory usage, etc. Speed up your Mac with simple clicks.
2. For optimizing your Mac OS performance, you can select user cache files, download files, system cache files, user logs, language files, and Xcode junk files, and run the scan. It would help if you opened Cleanmymac and hit the clean button whenever you find any performance issue or slowness on your MAC computer system or a laptop.

28 February 2021

We have few tips that may help an operating system like Mac OS X to clean junk files from the Mac system and to have a neat and clean Mac OS X environment. Clean up Mac cache. Mac stores a lot of information in files called caches, allowing the fast access to the data and reducing the need to get it from the original source again.

Does your Mac feel a little slow and unresponsive?

Or is it displaying a 'Your disk is almost full' error message?

That could be because there are excessive junk files occupying your Mac's storage disk.

Junk files take many shapes and forms. They also have varying sizes (some are tiny files while some may run into gigabytes) and are scattered across several folders on your Mac. Manually locating and removing these unwanted disk-consuming files can be exhausting and futile.

Thanks to Mac cleaning and optimization software, you can give your Mac's storage a clean sweep and free up space within seconds. So, here are our top picks of the best Mac cleaner software in 2021.

Best disk cleaner for Mac

You'll find tons of applications out there offering disk cleanup for Mac. Choosing the best one that matches your needs can get difficult. This is why we compiled this list containing ten of the best cleaning software for Mac.

The Mac cleaners reviewed in this article all found varying gigabytes of junk files on our test device — a 128GB MacBook Pro running macOS Big Sur. Here’s a result of our findings.

• MacKeeper 5 - 8.29 GB of junk files
• CleanMyMac X - 7.18 GB of junk files
• DaisyDisk - 2.10 GB of junk files
• CCleaner - 3.49 GB of junk files
• Cleaner One Pro - 8.20 GB of junk files
• Onyx - 3.80 GB of junk files
• AVG Cleaner - 3.17 GB of junk files
• Mac Cleaner Pro - 4.00 GB of junk files
• Avast Cleaner for Mac - 3.50 GB of junk files
• Disk Doctor - 5.00 GB of junk files

This is the latest version of the MacKeeper software. MacKeeper 5 boasts of improved functionalities, refreshed design, and an easy-to-navigate interface. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Mac newbie or a pro—you’ll get a hang of MacKeeper easily.

MacKeeper is an all-in-one software with a bunch of built-in cleaning tools that’ll get rid of junks and redundant files eating up your Mac’s storage. As a bonus, you also get an antivirus, duplicate finder, an ad blocker, and a variety of other privacy protection utilities.

There’s a 'Find & Fix' section where you can check the status of your Mac's storage, security, and overall performance at the click of a button.

MacKeeper also has an Auto-scan feature that’s enabled by default. So you don’t have to set a reminder or schedule to get your Mac scanned for vulnerabilities — MacKeeper does that automatically in the background.

As a cherry on top, MacKeeper also comes with a built-in 'Update Tracker'. This tool checks your Mac for outdated software and updates them accordingly.

You can also use MacKeeper’s “Smart Uninstaller” tool to uninstall apps and remove their respective leftover files.

• Price: From $14.95 (1-month plan).
• Download: Available here.

CleanMyMac X offers a suite of tools that removes junk files and malware from your Mac. The software has a clean interface and you’ll find everything you need to clean and optimize your Mac on the right sidebar.

There’s also a 'Smart Scan' feature that thoroughly scans your Mac and cleans unneeded junk, neutralizes potential threats, and boosts your system performance.

Like MacKeeper, CleanMyMac X also lets you effectively manage applications on your Mac. You can use the utilities in the Applications module to uninstall applications, remove system extensions, and find outdated apps and update them accordingly.

The Maintenance module will free up disk space on your Mac’s disk, repair broken file permission, and compress the size of your (Time Machine) backup.

CleanMyMac X is a paid cleaning tool but you can use the trial version for free. However, you should note that the trial version comes with a 500MB cleaning limit.

• Price: From $39.95 (1-year subscription).
• Download: Available here.

CCleaner is a household name in the cleaning software industry, and the company has one of the best Mac cleaning software.

CCleaner offers a cleaning utility that analyzes your Mac’s storage to hunt out cache files, browser cookies, and other junk files. It scans both system and third-party applications, leaving no stone unturned.

Asides from cleaning junk files, CCleaner also offers other performance optimization tools to instantly free up Mac memory. For example, you can use the 'Startup' tool to change your Mac's startup programs and optimize your Mac's startup speed.

The built-in “Duplicate Finder” will also help free up extra space by removing duplicate files located in similar or different folders on your Mac.

CCleaner is available for free, but there's a professional version that costs $19.95. The free version has the essential tools you need to get your Mac's storage spick and span. Likewise, it has no limit on the quantity of junks you can clean from your Mac.

However, if you fancy advanced features like automatic erasure of browser history, real-time monitoring of junk files, and automatic updates, you'll need to upgrade to the professional version.

• Price: $19.95 (1-year subscription).
• Download: Available here.

OnyX is free and gets the job done, it's not the most beginner-friendly app to clean up your Mac. The app's functionalities, utilities, and settings aren't out in the open, so it'll take some getting used to. When you get a hang of it, however, cleaning your Mac becomes a breeze.

OnyX has a deep-cleaning Storage management tool. You’ll find this in the Applications tab of the app’s Utilities section. The tool will uninstall unsupported applications, remove TV programmes and shows you've already watched, and delete junk items and cache files — all in a bid to save as much disk space as it can.

You can use OnyX for free, forever. However, make sure you download a version that’s compatible with your Mac’s operating system from the developer’s website.

• Price: Free.
• Download: Available here.

DaisyDisk does away with all the fancy stuff and takes a straightforward approach towards junk removal.

At the click of a button, DaisyDisk will scan your entire Mac disk in less than a minute and categorize your data into an interactive, color-coded map. Data labels are also displayed at the top-right corner of the app for easy identification.

To preview the content of the category, click on a data label or its corresponding color on the map to preview the content of the category. If you find a suspiciously large file consuming your Mac’s storage, all you need to do is drag the file to the Delete queue located at the bottom-left corner of the app.

This is one of the best apps to perform a disk cleanup on Mac. The simplicity and disk-scanning speed are two of its highlight features.

The only downside is that DaisyDisk isn't beginner-friendly. It shows you things eating up your Mac's storage but it doesn't tell you which ones are junk files or malware. You'll have to find and delete them yourself.

• Price: $9.95 (One-time payment).
• Download: Available here.

Formerly known as Dr. Cleaner, Cleaner One Pro (developed by Trend Micro) is another reliable app to clean up your Mac, particularly if you have a lot of duplicate photos.

It deep-cleans your Mac's storage by removing junk files, duplicate files, similar photos, and so on. There’s also a 'Big Files' tool that lets you preview and delete big files (between 10MB and 500MB) consuming excessive disk space.

The Smart Scan feature will check for vulnerabilities affecting your Mac’s performance and suggest actions to get them fixed.

Cleaner One Pro also comes with a menu bar tool that displays a quick overview of your Mac's CPU usage, memory usage, network status in real-time.

• Price: $14.95 (1-year subscription).
• Download: Available here.

Avast is renowned for its antivirus software but its Cleanup tool for Mac is just as good.

The app will clean up your Mac by removing junk files, duplicate documents, and applications that you barely use.

Avast Cleanup uses a unique image-detection technology to scan your photo gallery for bad images that are under-exposure, over-exposed, or blurry.

Everything you need to declutter your Mac is clearly spelled out on the app's dashboard. There are no hidden tools or menus. Simply launch the app, grant it access to your Mac's disk, scan for unwanted files, and choose what you want to keep or delete.

You can download Avast Cleanup for free but there’s a catch: the trial version works in scan-only mode. To clean your Mac with the app, you’ll need to sign up for an Avast Cleanup Premium subscription; Avast may provide a 60-day subscription-free trial period.

• Price: $47.99 (1-year subscription).
• Download: Available here.

This Mac system cleaner offers two main tools: a Disk Cleaner and a Duplicate Finder.

The former will scan the nook and cranny of your Mac for hidden files (application caches, junk files, unnecessary downloads, and so on) taking up disk space. The Duplicate Finder, on the other hand, will dig out identical files and folders.

The overall disk cleaning process is simple and effortless. The Duplicate Finder supports a drag-and-drop functionality that lets you find duplicate files in specific folders on your Mac. Simply drag the folder to the Duplicate Finder section and leave the rest to the AVG Cleaner.

• Price: Free.
• Download: Available here.

Disk Doctor is one of the few junk cleaners that removes a wide variety of unnecessary files from your Mac: application caches, message attachments, temporary files, application leftovers, partial or uncompleted downloads, application log files — you name it.

The app automatically scans your disk and groups unneeded files into 20 different categories. You can preview the files and choose what to keep and what to delete.

The app ships with a light interface by default but you can switch to a dark theme if you want. Disk Doctor is strictly a paid app; it costs $2.99 and is available on the App Store.

We advise that you download and use the Free Demo version of the app before making a purchase. That way, you can easily decide if it’s worth the investment or not.

We should mention that the Free Demo version only allows you to scan your drive. You cannot use it to remove junk or optimize your Mac's storage.

• Price: $2.99 (One-time payment).
• Download: Available here.

Think of MacCleaner Pro as a full-fledged file manager with disk cleaning and system optimization capabilities.

On the app’s dashboard, you’ll find an overview of your Mac’s storage color-coded into several file types and categories: system files, duplicate files, applications, documents, movies, and so on. Click on any of the categories to view the items occupying significant disk space.

In addition to removing junk files, there are additional tools that can help you fix issues affecting your Mac’s performance. The Speedup Tool, for example, will rebuild the Spotlight index, disabling startup apps, and free up RAM.

The built-in App Cleaner will also reset malfunctioning apps, manage browser extensions, remove unwanted/unused applications and delete their leftover files.

MacCleaner Pro’s junk cleaner and system optimization tools are available to all users. On the other hand, you’ll need to purchase the app to use pro tools like the duplicate finder, app uninstaller, and disk analyzer.

• Price: $44.99 (One-time payment).
• Download: Available here.

FAQ

What is the best Mac cleaning software in the market?

MacKeeper does a pretty good job. It is lightweight and you need not have any technical knowledge to use it. The interface is easy to understand and you can swiftly find junk files at the click of a button. It also comes with performance-optimization features that allows you to monitor your Mac.s memory and other resource-intensive processes in real-time.

Do Mac cleaners really work and won't slow down my Mac?

Yes, cleaning software really does help to declutter your Mac. We tested all ten applications in this article and they performed brilliantly. A cleaning software may consume CPU resources and slow down your Mac if it’s registered as a Login Item — an app that opens automatically when you boot up your Mac.

We should also mention that Mac cleaners will not slow down your Mac while scanning for junk files. If a Mac cleaner slows down your Mac's speed or performance, you may have too many apps open and running in the background. Close apps that you aren't using and try again.

Are Mac cleaner apps safe to use?

Mac cleaner apps from trusted developers are safe to use.

However, some malicious Mac cleaning software has a history of stealing users' data. Therefore, make sure you perform your due diligence and only use cleaners from reputable software companies.

We know that junks file can be easily and continually generated without any permission, it will take up lot of space on your RAM or hard drive. It's useless to keep these junk files live on your system, they not only will slow down your Mac performance, but also they may cause some unknown errors and glitches. So, it's highly recommend to remove all junk files on your Mac regularly.

Why We Need to Clean Junk Files on Mac?

Removing junk from Mac is beneficial and crucial for various reasons. First reason is that you will get to wipe all the infected and wasted items from your Mac computer that may slow down the system. Secondly, you can review the unused and old applications that are no use anymore and taking up all the space on the hard disk. And finally, if you keep cleaning your Mac junk files then it will perform way faster and will function smoothly.

Free Junk File Cleaner For Mac

Now, before you get started, know that cleaning random files from the Mac is brainless. You can't simply go through the hard disks and remove whatever you feel is useless. Have some patience and clean the files one by one to avoid any mess. But if you wish to automate the task and use software to do all the tasks for you then it could be lot easier. These tools like CleanGeeker can scan the computer thoroughly and erase the useless files from the computer along with old apps, junk files, cache file, duplicates, unused items, etc.

Part #1: What's Junk File?

MacOS has been working and designing from few years to terminate the junk and trashy files and totally remove them from the system without any acknowledgement of the user. Junk files are generally the information or files that take very little space so you may not even notice their presence in the system. These Junkies are classified in 12 different categories -

• 1. App cache (Created when you install, open and use an App)
• 2. Log files (Saves the recent and old activities in your system like calendar, events, etc.)
• 3. Language files (Various language files produced by apps but usually a user needs their native language to be used)
• 4. Broken login items (Just check the start menu and you will know what it is)
• 5. Duplicates (Copies of same object)
• 6. Browser cache (Created when you visit a website from browser)
• 7. Development waste (Accumulated when installing software)
• 8. Universal binaries (extra files that could be run on multiple platforms)
• 9. Trash files (Find them in the Trash or Recycle Bin)
• 10. Old downloads (Items that have been downloaded but never used)
• 11. Old backups (Backups that are created periodically but are unused)
• 12. Remnant data (Remaining files after erasing a software).

Part #2: Clean Junk File by Deleting Unnecessary Disk Images

Mostly people prefer to remove junk files on Mac by searching in their main directory or the hard drives where they store their contents, but often forget the download section which is the main dumping ground with piles of unnecessary files especially the disk images which get cluttered. Few of which might be useful but most of them are simply heaps of forgotten items. Thus cleaning of these disk images in this section can greatly reduce the possibility of clearing junk files off your system. To clean up follow up ahead:

Step 1. First go to 'Finder' and then select 'Download' folder.

Step 2. Type here 'disk image' into the search box.

Step 3. Kindly select 'Disk Image' beneath the 'Kinds' header.

Step 4. Now; delete all the DMG files shown out of this search results as they are taking a lot of space in your Mac.

Cons –

• Deletion of Disk image files cannot alone solve the entire need of junk file clearance.
• The process is time consuming many a times..

Part #3: Clear Up Junk Files on Mac using CleanGeeker

CleanGeeker is an all in one Mac Cleaning software which can remove all types of unwanted, unused, damaged, corrupted, duplicate files off your Mac. It could automatically detect which files and drives needs to be optimized and cleans them. Obviously, you can manually control what files to delete or not if you have the time to go through each and every item present on the computer. CleanGeeker not only helps to remove the use less files and items from the computer but it also offers salient features like maintaining and monitoring the features of the system. Also, it allows you to uninstall software completely without leaving any saved settings files. It can collect all the plugins, extensions, addons, widgets, etc. into one single place and shreds each and every file into pieces.

CleanGeeker - Clean Junk Files on Mac with One-Click

• Clean all types of junk files from Mac easly and 100% efficient.
• Clean up mail attachments, login items, extensions, unused applications files.
• It is capable of doing three kinds of scanning - App Scan; Junk Scan; Deep Scan.
• It is compatible with all Mac OS versions.

Step 1Download and Install CleanGeeker on Your Mac

First of all, click the download button to o download the correct version on your Mac computer, then install the tool using install wizard. Run the tool with admin rights, and you can see the amazing GUI of the tool. On the main screen, watch out for 'Home' section on the left hand side and click on it. Here it will display you all the used space, available space, and CPU usage, etc.

Step 2Scan All Junk Files from Your Mac

Now go to 'Junk Clean' section below and choose the junk items by checking the checkboxes and clicking the 'Delete' button at the bottom right corner.

Step 3Start to Clean Junk Files on Your Mac OS X Now

Select your apps by ticking the checkboxes next to it and once done, click 'Delete' button at the bottom right corner of the screen.

Once you are done with all types of junk file cleaning, you can be rest assured of the proper condition of your Mac now onwards.

Part #4: Remove Junk Files on Mac Manually

in this part we are going to show you how to clean the junk files (cachefile, logs and Temporary file) from a Mac. Now, if you have no time to go through each and every files and folders on the Mac then it would be better to opt in for a third party Junk cleaner oftware in part 3. First we going to show you basic regular steps and procedures to clean up the Mac junk files.

Remove Cache and Temporary Files:

• Step 1. Stop all the active apps and click on 'Finder'
• Step 2. Select 'Go' followed by 'Go to Folder'
• Step 3. Using your keyboard, type '?/library/caches' and hit the enter button to navigate to the junkies folder.
• Step 4. You will be able to see myriad files and folders which are totally useless cache data. Simply select all and press the delete button.
• Step 5. Just to make sure they are out of the hard disk. Go to the Trash can and erase the files from there as well. Now reboot the Mac so that it can apply the changes.
• Step 6. Next, again open the Finder option but this type '/library/cache' to erase the system cache files.

Remove Log Files:

Totally Free Junk File Cleaner

Free Mac Cleanup Software

I know you guys must be thinking how simple these procedures were, but truth to be told, you will have to be super awake and cautions to perform these steps. Delete 1 wrong folder and you may erase some vital information from the system. That's why take your time and manually erase all these files and folders. It certainly is time consuming but better take precaution than feeling sorry. That's why, we often recommend using a software that could automatically erase these junk files and make your Mac faster than ever. Moreover, these tools are time effective and can maintain your system without going through any brief manuals.

Free Junk File Cleaner App For Mac

Conclusion:

Free Junk File Cleaner For Mac Downloads

Cleaning the Mac alone will not do any good if you are not cautious about what you are accumulating while working on your Mac. The tools can help you though to settle the issue momentarily but cannot rectify your carelessness for your Machine. Thus you need to be careful about what you rare storing. In addition to it, keep the last tool CleanGeeker installed on your Mac for a guaranteed output, as you might come across a situation every now then when you need a Mac cleaner to do the job for you.

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