CleanApp Review: It Does Much More than Just Clean Your Apps

A lot of us download many new apps each week. Some we like and some we don’t. But when you’re done with an app, what do you do? Do you just drag it to the trash? Or, do you go searching around for the Plist and Application Support. Well, if you do either of these, then you really need an app deleter, like Synium’s CleanApp.

The purpose of CleanApp, or any other app deleter is to completely remove an application from your hard drive. Obviously, they are not completely perfect, but they can come extremely close. One feature that CleanApp incorporates to try to get as many of the app’s files deleted is it’s Logging-Service. To turn it on, go to the Service pane of CleanApp>Preferences and click the Start Logging button. And if you Mac crashes, or you get errors about CleanApp, you may want to reset the database by clicking on the Delete Database button in the Database pane of CleanApp>Preferences. This logging service is a constantly running process that tracks what files each and every one of your applications creates; this helps it to completely remove your applications from your hard drive… and more sometimes. If you save a file with a text editor, the logging service will count this as a file created by the application. So, if you have this service on, you have to pay close attention to what files CleanApp says its going to delete; if you don’t, you might just lose that huge paper that’s due tomorrow. If you ever want to view what files any of your applications have created, just go to the Logging sidebar item. You can then click the triangle next to an application’s name to see these files. You can also delete an application (and its files from here) by just clicking the Prepare to Delete… button when you have an application (or an application’s file) selected.

Another feature that CleanApp implements that I have never seen in an app deleter is deletion of Language Packages. Language Packages are what developers use to make his/her application appear in the main language of the user’s computer. But, there is almost no reason you need to keep Language Packages for any other language than your default. So, what CleanApp does is allows you to choose what Language Packages from an application to delete. All you have to do is drag an application on to CleanApp like you want to delete it, but then go to the Language Packages sidebar item. You will then see every Language Package included in the application except for your default language. You will also see that only some of them are checked. The unchecked ones are the ones that you have told CleanApp never to delete. If it is your first time using CleanApp, then it probably wasn’t you who told it. So, if you want to change what Language Packages never to delete, just specify in the Languages pane of CleanApp>Preferences. The unchecked ones are the ones you will not allow it to delete. Of course, there are free applications like Monolingual that do this same thing, but it is still nice to have it included as an all-in-one.

Another nice feature in CleanApp is its ability to archive your applications. If you want to delete an application for now, but you think you may want to use it again later, you may want to use this feature. First, you may want to specify where the archives go. To do this, click the Change Archive Path… button in the Archives pane of CleanApp>Preferences. Then, when you drag an application on to CleanApp, instead of choosing the Delete item in the popup button at the bottom of the screen, either choose the Archive or Archive & Delete item. CleanApp will then show you what it is doing (e.g. Copying Files). When this process is done, you will notice that the Archives sidebar item has a 1 (or some other value depending on how may you had before) next to it. If you click on the Archives sidebar item, and select the click the checkbox next to the archive you just created, you can click Open Selected Archive… This will open the archive, and then all you have to do is click the Restore Check File(s) button that appeared and CleanApp will restore all of that app’s files from the archive. And, if you decide you don’t like CleanApp, you can open these files manually as disk images in the place you specified earlier. Archives are a great way to make sure you don’t delete an app and then regret it later on.

CleanApp also contains a few more notable features which I will quickly describe. The first one is its Old Files feature. To access it, just go to the Old Files sidebar item. This allows you to see large files that have not been used for a long time. If you want to change the directory where CleanApp searches for these, just click the Add Path… (or Remove Path) button in the Old Files tab of the Paths pane of CleanApp>Preferences. It should be noted, this is a feature that you can find in some free apps. The second one is its Cache Files support. To use this, go to the Cache Files sidebar item. This feature allows you to see the caches that your applications have created. Caches basically make your applications run and load faster… but you should still clear them every once-in-a-while. If you want CleanApp to clear all of your applications’ caches, just click the little checkbox at the top of the window. And to clear individual apps’ caches, check the checkboxes by their names. Again, this is a feature that can be found in some free apps.

Synium’s CleanApp retails for $13 and you can download a free trial from their site. Although all it does is implement a lot of features you may find in free apps, the fact that it is all-in-one gives it some major brownie points. I have also noticed, that even without the Logging Service enabled, it finds files that AppZapper and others don’t find. I think for the price, it is a great option with many nicely implemented features.

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