MacDust: Because Vacuums Are Too Noisy

After trying and looking for several Mac “Cleaning Apps” I came across MacDust from The Apple Geek. At first glance, MacDust appears to be a simple and elegant cleaning app; however, it also brings in many more obscure features that other apps like Onyx don’t have.

MacDust includes basic cleaning functions that most apps of this kind have, like Cache and Log cleaning, but many more are also included. System, Browsers, Chats, Torrents and Other are displayed in tabs that are simple and easy to navigate. Even a 6 year old could use it.

On launch, MacDust displays a rather ugly splash screen. I would prefer it to go straight to the system menu (hint!).

As I said before, the menu is displayed along the top and is simple to navigate. The window size changes to match the size of what it is displaying, though nice, can get a little annoying after a while. The Preferences dialog box also has a few little options that can help MacDust perform its job better. The usual “Check For Updates” and “Save Logs” are present, but it also allows you to change lengths of panel transitions.

MacDust’s cleaning features are quite extensive and useful. Cleaning caches and logs certainly seemed to give my Mac a speed boost. MacDust also allows users to clean many applications’ data caches too. Applications such as Acquistition and WoW are just a few of the extensive list supported by MacDust; chat histories for pretty much all clients are also deleted right from inside MD.

Browsers are also able to be “Dusted”, Safari and Firefox are among the list able to have Caches, History, and Temporary Files cleaned. Games are also another thing cleaned in MacDust, many popular games like Unreal Tournament and Zuma can be given a bit of a speed boost. Finally, Leopard users will also be kept happy, the 2D dock can be enabled or disabled easily within the System tab, so gone are the days of using a separate application or a command line hack.

You can find a full list of features at MacDust.com and you will see that MacDust has many features that other apps don’t have. I see the app as a compliment to others such as Onyx and Cocktail but at $8.95 I suggest that you give it a go and see if any of its features work for you. MacDust offers a trial which works for 15 cleans before registration is required.

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