Keeping my Mac happy
October 26, 2016 7:44 AM Subscribe
I have a Mac. It's not very old (spring 2015), but I have used Migration Assistant from Mac to Mac every 2-4 years for a very, very long time. And therein lies the question.
Based on my own inspection of the launchctl list and kextstat, I'm pretty certain I don't have any leftover kernel extensions or launch items running that I don't mean to have there.
Obviously, though, there's still lots of crufty folders in ~/Library/Application Support and related such folders, mostly holding preferences files.
So there's my question: assuming I'm correct that I'm not running any old crap inadvertently, am I also correct that leftover folders and .plists in the various Library locations are effectively inert? If there's no binary accessing them, I have a hard time understanding what harm they could be doing outside of wasting a trivial amount of disk space.
If I'm wrong about this, I'd love to understand why. Aside from kexts and launch agents/daemons (and user-specific login items, obviously), how else could old code be running? If no such code is running, how much do the leftover folders I mentioned matter?
Based on my own inspection of the launchctl list and kextstat, I'm pretty certain I don't have any leftover kernel extensions or launch items running that I don't mean to have there.
Obviously, though, there's still lots of crufty folders in ~/Library/Application Support and related such folders, mostly holding preferences files.
So there's my question: assuming I'm correct that I'm not running any old crap inadvertently, am I also correct that leftover folders and .plists in the various Library locations are effectively inert? If there's no binary accessing them, I have a hard time understanding what harm they could be doing outside of wasting a trivial amount of disk space.
If I'm wrong about this, I'd love to understand why. Aside from kexts and launch agents/daemons (and user-specific login items, obviously), how else could old code be running? If no such code is running, how much do the leftover folders I mentioned matter?
Response by poster: That's not really a path I'm interested in. Thanks.
posted by uberchet at 10:19 AM on October 26, 2016
posted by uberchet at 10:19 AM on October 26, 2016
Best answer: I think you're fine. You've covered the bases on old code running. There's little to no harm in leaving old config files, etc around in ~/Library. I mean you're wasting a bit of disk space, but who cares.
posted by Nelson at 10:37 AM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Nelson at 10:37 AM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
The answer to your question is: no, you're not wrong; do what you want. The only problem I can see is that if you decide, after a while, to use a program again, forgetting you ever did previously, and that a pre-existing .plist file (from an older version) freaks it out. Basically, the limits of human memory for minutiae could cause problems in a cluttered system with ancient cruft attached, but otherwise it seems fine, just like you seem to already know. If you really wanna ease your mind, maybe read up on what exactly Migration Assistant migrates, and double check those areas. I dunno.
posted by destructive cactus at 11:35 AM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by destructive cactus at 11:35 AM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I used to do that. I would just image my drive from one computer to the next. I did it since the first OS X beta until earlier this year with El Capitan. That's 15 years! Over the years I did my best to clean out all the launch files and dreck and so forth and generally did good upkeep. There were, of course, tons of remnants of old apps all over the place. But generally I thought I was doing well.
But the latest computer, a 2012 MacBook Pro, started feeling slow after a few years. Frequent beachballs. General unresponsiveness. Weirdness. I thought maybe the hard drive was failing but it passed all tests. I cleaned caches and logs, reset PRAM, removed any constantly running apps that weren't essential (like some stuff in the menu bar), etc., etc. It was still slow. A complete reinstall of the OS on top of the current install didn't help.
Now, I have always mocked those people who seem to constantly suggest a nuke and pave as a general solution on both on Mac and Windows. I worked in Mac support for years and generally know what I'm doing, even years later, and can usually solve my own computer problems without doing anything drastic. A wipe-and-reinstall always seemed like overkill, and, in the case of most users who do not have good backups, a good chance at losing wanted data.
However, earlier this year, for the first time in forever, I bit the bullet. I made sure my backups were good (I do nightly drive imaging and cloud document backup) and wiped the drive. I did a full several-hour erase to write zeroes everywhere (which helps map bad drive sectors out of service, I believe) and then I reinstalled the system. I then reinstalled apps from scratch — only what I would need to start with. I pulled all of my email and documents over fresh from the cloud. I re-entered all my logins and preferences by hand — I did not bring any pref files across from the backups *at all.* I even sacrificed my terminal profiles. The only thing I brought over were browser bookmarks and those loaded from the cloud.
And it has been like a dream. It's like a new computer! Everything works as it should. It zips! It whirs! It does what it is supposed to!
The drive never failed. I replaced it with an SSD recently for even more speed, and now that old drive is in a case as a Time Machine backup (quadruple redundancy!).
So, I guess my point is, are you sure? Are you sure that a full wipe and reinstall isn't a good idea?
posted by Mo Nickels at 1:57 PM on October 26, 2016
But the latest computer, a 2012 MacBook Pro, started feeling slow after a few years. Frequent beachballs. General unresponsiveness. Weirdness. I thought maybe the hard drive was failing but it passed all tests. I cleaned caches and logs, reset PRAM, removed any constantly running apps that weren't essential (like some stuff in the menu bar), etc., etc. It was still slow. A complete reinstall of the OS on top of the current install didn't help.
Now, I have always mocked those people who seem to constantly suggest a nuke and pave as a general solution on both on Mac and Windows. I worked in Mac support for years and generally know what I'm doing, even years later, and can usually solve my own computer problems without doing anything drastic. A wipe-and-reinstall always seemed like overkill, and, in the case of most users who do not have good backups, a good chance at losing wanted data.
However, earlier this year, for the first time in forever, I bit the bullet. I made sure my backups were good (I do nightly drive imaging and cloud document backup) and wiped the drive. I did a full several-hour erase to write zeroes everywhere (which helps map bad drive sectors out of service, I believe) and then I reinstalled the system. I then reinstalled apps from scratch — only what I would need to start with. I pulled all of my email and documents over fresh from the cloud. I re-entered all my logins and preferences by hand — I did not bring any pref files across from the backups *at all.* I even sacrificed my terminal profiles. The only thing I brought over were browser bookmarks and those loaded from the cloud.
And it has been like a dream. It's like a new computer! Everything works as it should. It zips! It whirs! It does what it is supposed to!
The drive never failed. I replaced it with an SSD recently for even more speed, and now that old drive is in a case as a Time Machine backup (quadruple redundancy!).
So, I guess my point is, are you sure? Are you sure that a full wipe and reinstall isn't a good idea?
posted by Mo Nickels at 1:57 PM on October 26, 2016
It's without hyperbole the Best, Easiest, and Simplest solution. I do it on an almost regular basis anymore, without giving it a second thought. I've done it with every OS X upgrade, except Yosemite, and guess what, I ended up doing it anyway when stuff was borked after not doing a clean install.
posted by humboldt32 at 3:12 PM on October 26, 2016
posted by humboldt32 at 3:12 PM on October 26, 2016
Response by poster: "It's without hyperbole the Best, Easiest, and Simplest solution."
I absolutely disagree. What Mo Nickels describes is a scorched-earth approach that would require hours and hours of reconfiguration and reinstallation, and I'm completely unwilling to do so absent a clear and definite description of what, exactly, doing so would accomplish that I'm not already doing.
Taking that plunge absent that understanding strikes me as magical thinking. It works for Windows because of a number of design decisions MSFT hasn't managed to jettison, like the Registry and some ever-growing folders in C:\Windows, that have no equivalents in OS X.
I'm not going to threadsit, but also don't want "my" question to lead people down that path needlessly.
posted by uberchet at 3:57 PM on October 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
I absolutely disagree. What Mo Nickels describes is a scorched-earth approach that would require hours and hours of reconfiguration and reinstallation, and I'm completely unwilling to do so absent a clear and definite description of what, exactly, doing so would accomplish that I'm not already doing.
Taking that plunge absent that understanding strikes me as magical thinking. It works for Windows because of a number of design decisions MSFT hasn't managed to jettison, like the Registry and some ever-growing folders in C:\Windows, that have no equivalents in OS X.
I'm not going to threadsit, but also don't want "my" question to lead people down that path needlessly.
posted by uberchet at 3:57 PM on October 26, 2016 [3 favorites]
I've been pretty happy with CleanMyMac for getting rid of old system cruft. I can't exactly say if it makes my system run any better, but it's never broken anything and usually leaves me with a fair amount of extra space once it does its thing.
posted by zsazsa at 8:37 PM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by zsazsa at 8:37 PM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
I've always been a little suspect about such things, but in the same spirit as zsazsa'a answer I'll recommend AppCleaner from freemacsoft.net (not the app of the same name in the App store - no experience with that one...). It purports to be "a small application which allows you to thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps", with a "SmartDelete" preference - when you delete an app by sending it to the trash, it pops up with a list of associated files/folders and asks if you want to delete them.
Although I can't say I've dug too deeply into how effective / comprehensive it is with that, the times I have looked it has managed to clean up associated ~/Library/ entries and individual .plist / config files. At the very least, it seems to work without fuss or causing any problems.
posted by Pinback at 9:49 PM on October 26, 2016
Although I can't say I've dug too deeply into how effective / comprehensive it is with that, the times I have looked it has managed to clean up associated ~/Library/ entries and individual .plist / config files. At the very least, it seems to work without fuss or causing any problems.
posted by Pinback at 9:49 PM on October 26, 2016
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posted by humboldt32 at 8:58 AM on October 26, 2016