Uninstalling Mac Applications : The Basics

Mac applications come as a package and can be easily removed by just dragging to trash. Many users think that the entire associated files are deleted and need not to care about anything but that is not the case. Application create preference files which are stored in /Home/Library/Preferences/. Although, these files do not interrupt other applications but they do occupy some space in disk and the volume goes increasing with time.

Do you know how to go to library folder in Mac?

Click Go > Go to Folder type ~Library

Sometimes applications may have uninstaller too, which removes the application. In some cases the uninstaller can be invoked by customizing during the installation process.

Some applications may store these files in /Home/Library/Applications Support/ folder. You can see there if the application has created a folder. These can be deleted manually from Applications Support folder. Again, they are nothing but space occupiers once the application is trashed.

Some applications may install a Startupitems or a Log In item. These are usually installed in the /Library/StartupItems/. You can delete these items from the list by following the path Accounts icon -> LogIn Items tab. Select the item from the list, you want to remove and click the "-" (minus) button.

Do you know what are daemons?

I am not describing daemons here but mentioning the way to delete them. Follow  /Library/LaunchAgents/ and /Library/LaunchDaemons/.

If you want to see it the application has installed any other files then the best way is to search with finder. You can search for application name or developer name. Unfortunately, the Spotlight doesn’t search into certain folders. In such cases you need to go for some third party applications like Stellar SpeedUp Mac.

Some applications install items to determine if it is already installed. This is called a receipt which is stored in the /Library/Receipts/ folder. We must delete these items to which usually are stored with ".pkg" extension.

There are many utilities that can uninstall applications. Here is a selection:

·       Stellar SpeedUp Mac

·       AppZapper

·       Automaton

·       Hazel

·       CleanApp

·       Yank

·       SuperPop

·       Uninstaller

·       Spring Cleaning

Defrag Macbook with Stellar Defragmenting software

Like many other Macbook users I used to think that my Mac can never get slower and can never be infected by virus attack. But, my idea didn’t remain so.  My Mac started slowing down after 3 years and it was becoming pathetic to work with it.

I searched online to fix the issue but, didn’t get any workable answer. My cousin, who is a Sr. developer at Microsoft, shared his knowledge with me and suggested to find some defragmenting software for Macbook.

As everyone knows there is neither such built-in application for the task nor is suggested by Apple. According to Apple, Mac HFS+ file system is smart enough to handle file fragmentation.

But, still I wanted to give a try and continued my search for some third party tool. I got Stellar Drive Defrag in its latest version ie; 3. It shows option to defrag either a volume or a single large file.  On selecting my bootvolume, it shows fragmented files, which was very shocking. 

Stellar Drive Defrag

I did nothing but defrag my volume and restart the machine. This time I can see my Macbook working like it used to, a couple of years ago.

Pros: Very clear and precise interface to perform with effective results.

Cons: Takes little longer at large volumes

Recommendation: Can be recommended to Mac users who have tried every possible solution to to fix their slow Mac.

How to check and remove garbage in my Mac

When our Mac starts slowing down, we start thinking about upgrading RAM, OS X defragmenting etc.. But, there are some smart Mac users who know the actual cause of this fall in speed. Here, we are discussing the same.

Before we jump into the technical frames of the issue, imagine a home with 3 rooms and 6 members living for last 5 months, where all the doors and windows are shut. All the necessary items like food, vegetables, clothes, newspapers, magazines etc. can be taken in but no waste is allowed to throw out. How will you define the picture? – “Messy and Unbearable”.

The same scene can be painted for ours too. It happens when we keep installing applications, storing same photos, movies and videos in different volumes (in the name of creating backups) and never care about those cache and binary files, stored in every corner of Mac disk. These unnecessary files eat too much space and thus resources to bring the performance down.

So, it goes quite obvious that like our homes, our machine also needs cleaning. We must monitor the applications, cache files, duplicates being stored in our Mac. Here is the list of files which Make Mac messy.

1.     Useless applications
2.     Universal Binary files
3.     Cache
4.     Language files
5.     Duplicate data
6.     Log files
7.     System Junks
8.     Useless large files

How to remove this garbage from Mac drive? 

Although the task can be done manually but, up to some extent only. Smart users do this Mac cleaning task with Stellar Speedup Mac. This tool is the perfect choice for removing all types of unnecessary files in just few clicks. It scans your disk thoroughly and lists the files to be deleted. You can have a look of them before removing them permanently.

Here are some screenshots of Stellar Speedup Mac v3.0 showing different features of the best Mac cleaning application.

So, if you are struggling with slow and sluggish Mac then this is the perfect time to install the trial version of this tool and check for amount of space that can be cleaned, gaining speed of your machine.

How to improve Mac startup | Minimize Mac startup Time

My Mac has very slow startup and shut down which irritates me a lot. Everyday in the office I struggle with my slow Mac and get scolded for late project delivery.

Do you share the same feeling? Is your Mac also suffering from sluggishness?  Here we are disclosing some very helpful and practical solutions for this problem.

1. Replace HDD with faster SSD
An SSD (Solid State Drive) can bring a perfect improvement to your Mac speed since it avails Mac to read more data (files) than a simple HDD (Hard Disk Drive).  The random access time in SSD is about 0.1 ms as compared to 5 to 10 ms for HDD.  It simply means faster loading of files and faster booting. Those who have recently bought their Macbook need not to worry because it already comes with SSD.

Please note that SSD is not a cheap solution and costs more than HDD. Although upgrading hard drive is not easy in Mac but it increases speed to a very noticeable rate.
 
2. Another method to add speed to Mac startup, is to remove all unnecessary fonts installed on Mac.
Application -> Font Book Right-click and select Remove <font> or Remove <font> Family
The method demands attention otherwise there may be a loss of essential system fonts.
 
3. Remove login items which you don’t need
One of the simplest ways to get your desktop more quickly is to remove processes, which get launched automatically at startup.  Actually this practice will make your desktop appear more quickly once you’ve logged in as normal.
•    Go to System Preferences and select Users & Groups
•    Select user name in the left hand window pane and the Login Items button on the right hand side
•    Remove the items which you don’t need, from the list and prevent them from running

4. Disconnect the peripherals
Its good to disconnect the peripherals when you they are not in use. It’s necessary because checking updates and other processes can delay the startup of your Mac.  Disconnecting these unused devices becomes more important when they are not working properly.

Problem not solved?
If you are not satisfied with these solutions and still facing the same irritating situation then you need some specified software for this task.

Stellar SpeedUp Mac is the perfect match for this task. It cleans your Mac drive and creates free space to be used by OS and thus improves its performance.

Which items does Speedup Mac remove?
With the passage of time there accumulates plenty of unnecessary items, which kill free space and bring down the overall speed of machine. Stellar Speedup Mac scans the Mac disk for these unnecessary items and removes them permanently from the disk. Here is the list of file types, which can be cleaned with tool.

•    Cache files
•    Log files
•    System Junk
•    Trashes & Leftovers
•    Manage extensions
•    Universal Binaries
•    Language files
•    Duplicate files
•    Large files

No other option is as successful as Speedup Mac to give rocket speed to your Mac. Many users have tried it and found their Mac running as they were on day 1. We recommend you to try the application before you buy it. Visit: http://www.stellarspeedupmac.com

How Auto-Defragmentation Occurs on Mac OS X based Computers

As far as fragmentation is concerned, Windows users have an upper hand because of the inbuilt ‘Disk Defragmentation’ tool that is used to improve the performance of computers when they come across an unusual state of gradual performance downfall. On the other hand, Mac machine lacks such a tool in Disk Utility (i.e. the Mac inbuilt disk management toolbox, found at Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility).
 
Disk Utility is helpful in some cases like fixing corruption in a volume and/or its permissions, drive partitioning tasks, and more. However, when it comes to carry out defragmentation on Mac, Disk Utility is helpless. Mac users believe that the ‘so-called’ excellent Mac machine they are using does not come across any such issue, which also is a statement of Apple Inc. Well, hard drives do undergo fragmentation, no matter which computer they are installed on. Even Mac machine experiences performance downfall issues due to fragmentation.
Auto Defragmentation of Mac
 
According to Apple’s statement, Mac machines do not experience fragmentation since they are smart enough to deal with it automatically. The statement indirectly points to the HFS+ file system that is used to format the hard drive installed on the Mac machines. In fact, the HFS+ file system scans each file being opened for fragments, and then defrags it automatically, if necessary. However, the criteria is applicable only to the files below 20MB of size. Therefore, the users himself has to defragment Mac files above 20MB of size, which obviously requires a commercial defragmentation tool.
 
How Fragmentation Occurs
The term ‘fragmentation’ is associated with the algorithm that a computer operating system implements to save data on the hard drive. On Macintosh based computers, the HFS+ file system is assigned the task to allocate a block to each file saved by the user, where the term ‘block’ refers to a small region of the space on the hard drive, which is intended to store a file individually as well as efficiently. However, a number of blocks contain free spaces due to implementation of an inefficient block allocation algorithm.
 
The free or leftover space in a block on the hard drive is termed the ‘fragment’.
On the other hand, when a large file is saved, Mac file system breaks it into a number of segments, and then these segments are stored individually in multiple blocks on the hard drive. The blocks occupied by the segments of a file are linked to each other logically. However, the inefficient block allocation algorithm fails to store these segments contiguously. Consequently, the file segments are stored in multiple blocks non-continuously.
 
Imagine a large file is stored on the Mac. Undoubtedly, since the size of this file is larger than that of the storage blocks available, the HFS+ file system will break the file into segments of smaller sizes. Consequently, some of the filled blocks contain free space because of their smaller size, while many ones are filled efficiently. The state of the hard drive caused when free spaces are present inside the filled regions of the hard drive is termed as internal fragmentation.
 
As mentioned above, the HFS+ file system is responsible for blocks allocation on the hard drive on Mac machines. Macs often come undergo inefficient utilization of the blocks when a poor storage allocation algorithm is implemented. Consequently, the segments of a file are stored non-contiguously. In such a state, the unfilled blocks are available outside the allocated region though. However, they fail to store files because of their smaller size. Such a state of the hard drive is termed as external fragmentation.
 
Since the HFS+ file system cannot store large files in the available blocks, it breaks all such files into segments, and then stores them. In this state, the segments of the files are scattered; and it is thus, termed as data fragmentation.
 
Defragmenting Mac Drive
“Defragmentation refers to a mechanism to rearrange the blocks of the hard drives in a logical order in order to reduce the response time of data, thereby dealing with the fragments appropriately.”
 
Disk Utility in Mac OS X is able to fix disk related problems; however, it lacks defragmentation tool. In order to be able to deal with fragmentation, you must have a commercial defragmentation tool. However, the developer – Apple denies for any such requirement for Mac systems, as the HFS+ file system itself is able to deal with fragmentation in an efficient manner. For this, it scans each file thoroughly for fragments when it is opened. In case a file is found as highly fragmented, it defrags that file automatically. However, the files it scan and defrags automatically not more than 20MB of size, which means the users need to defragment Mac file that are above 20MB of size.
 
Mac OS X does not allocate recently emptied blocks to save new files. In fact, it shifts all such blocks backwards in order for henceforth allocation. This minimizes the odds for fragmentation to occur. Also, it adds all frequently accessed files to hot file zone, which makes all these files available again at a much faster rate.
 
As discussed earlier, the HFS+ file system on Macs defrags the files automatically when they are opened. However, it does not mean that all files meet the required criteria with no failure. In fact, the size of the fragmented file can be up to 20MB of size in order to be defragmented automatically by the HFS+ file system. In other words, Macs OS X is not able to defrag large files (such as movies, Mac applications, and HD videos), and therefore requires professional defragmentation tool.
 
You can download a defragmentation app from the Internet, as this not only enhances the performance of your Mac system considerably, but optimizes the free space as well. However, make sure the application you use is reliable and you have proper information about how it is used to defrag the Mac drive. If you do not, then you must go through the software user manual. Or else, consult the experts for required help of any kind.

Simple ways To Clean up OS X Mavericks

OS X Mavericks is too smart to keep itself clean and speedy. But, there comes a stage when it needs to be maintained manually. There are many manual tips, which can bring speed to your slow Mavericks.
Here, I am with 5 most powerful tips to speed up Mavericks. But, if you are in great need of cleaning your Mac drive in just few clicks then jump directly to point 6.

1. Verify and Repair Permissions

Do you know what permissions are? Actually, it’s a set of information, associated with each file on your Mac, which tells the operating system what users and applications can access that file. If permissions face any problem or mismatching then it may cause issues with loading applications, email and even logging in.
You can verify permissions via Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility > Verify Disk Permissions.
If you find issues with permissions in Mavericks then click Repair Disk Permissions.

2. Verify and Repair Disk

After permissions, it’s the time to see if there is any problem with your disk. You can both verify and repair Mac disk with disk utility. Before you run the utility on startup disk, you need to boot your machine externally. We use this process when the disk goes unresponsive to experience some major issues.

3. Use Maintenance Scripts

How about running some scripts to maintain your Mac? You must know that your Mac is a UNIX-based system and there run some scripts s to clean up logs and temporary files, usually between 3:15 AM and 5:30 AM. Your Mac misses the chance if it is in sleep mode during this time. In such cases you need to run the scripts manually via terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal).
sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

4. Keep your Desktop Clean

Sometimes a cluttered desktop may be a reason of a slow Mac OS X. A desktop full of icons makes folder system slower. Cleaning desktop brings a noticeable improvement in its speed sometimes, equivalent to the sum of all other maintenance tasks.

5. Manage Mac Login Items

What are login items in my Mac? Have you ever asked this question to yourself? Basically, these are the programs that get loaded automatically when you startup your Mac. It’s recommended to have a short list of login items, which can be cut down at System Preferences > Users & Groups.

6. What to do if manual tips are worthless?

If the Mac maintenance manual tips, mentioned above, are not working then you must go with some Mac cleanup tool. There is no built-in application to scan and trash useless items from your Mac. So, a move to third party tool like Stellar SpeedUp Mac, will be an intelligent decision.

What Stellar SpeedUp Mac does?

This Mac cleaning application scans your hard drive / specific volume for all the useless data like duplicate files, cache, leftovers, language files and universal binaries and removes them permanently. It creates free space in your Mac disk to avail memory resources to OS.

Wish you a very speedy Mac OS X  ……..

Cleanup Mac for Mavericks | Speed up Mavericks OS X 10.9

How to cleanup Mac drive for Mavericks to speedup OS X 10.9 performance. The question is very genuine and many of the Mac users facing slow OS X 10.9, may have serious opinion about it.

Apple announces Mavericks, the latest OS X update available for free. Now, users can update their OS X via Mac App Store, it’s the best way for those having enough bandwidth.  Instead of getting caught in the event of update hangs, I would suggest to go with these tips for carving out the maximum out of Mavericks.

Clean out the wastes

When you download the update it will size about 5.3 GB of space, from where the files will be unpacked and installed. In such a situation, if your machine is running short of space, with hard drive about to full, you might want to clear out the cobwebs before updating.

The best recommended utilities for cleaning Mac drive includes Stellar Speedup Mac. It shows you the list of all the applications and files eating space on your Mac drive. You can select and remove those useless items residing in your Mac. It’s really an easy to use Mac speedup tool for Mavericks for finding those games you haven’t played for last many years but, keeping eating GBs of space on your hard drive.

Back up important things

The next important task is to make backup of current data so that you won’t lose any data even if something goes wrong during installation. The easiest way is to use Apple’s Time Machine (an inbuilt program), which makes it really easy to create backup of your system that you can restore from.

The Time Machine doesn’t create a bootable backup. For that, you will have to opt for some third party tool like Stellar Drive Clone. It can create a complete bootable backup of your whole drive.

So, finally, before upgrading to Mavericks, make sure you have the necessary resources ready with you. Get the minimum memory and space required for OS X 10.9.

DOWNLOAD NOW