Besides its cleaning function, CleanMyDrive is intended to be used as a monitoring utility to automatically clean disks on unmount, to see the available space on all mounted drives via an intuitive menu, and eject all drives in one click. Basically, CleanMyDrive combines everything Finder lacks for managing drives. Ukrainian developer MacPaw is offering CleanMyMac free of charge at the moment. Mac users can download the app and use it indefinitely to maintain their removable media. Although the Kiev-based studio designed it mostly for cleaning unwanted junk from our flash drives, I think it serves a much better purpose – drive management.
The Looks
You see, cleaning apps are a dime a dozen. And while CleanMyDrive does this niche justice, it's really the interface that makes it an incredible piece of management software. It sits there nice and quiet in your menubar, and it waits for you to pop open its sleek UI, which shows you all your mounted drives and disk images with several options for each.
If your drives look anything like those shown in the image above, some sweeping is needed. Just hit "clean" and the app will carry out the appropriate maintenance – regardless if it's spring time or not.
Once you're done with the cleaning, if you want to access a volume, just click its icon. CleanMyDrive takes you right inside your HDD / USB flash / external drive and shows you the contents in the Finder. When you're done, just close the Finder window. It's that easy!
You know that everything mounted on your desktop eats away at your hard drives and memory, right? If, for example, you have a mounted disk image that's no longer in use, just hit the "eject button" in the drive's box to instantly get rid of it, saving space and memory.
Want to eject everything in one shot? No problem. CleanMyDrive has you covered with the handy "Eject All" button located at the bottom-right side. There's also a quick command for ejecting all DMGs in the extras menu.
Drives that you know are going to get mounted and ejected a lot can benefit from the automatic cleaning function – available at the press of a button (see screenshot below).
You can also access Disk Utility right from CleanMyDrive, in case one of your drives needs more thorough maintenance. Everything is condensed exactly where and when you need it! Best of all, you get a bird's-eye view of all your drives in a split second, which enables you to asses which one needs some space freed up. It's nothing short of amazing just how simple, yet useful, a cleaning utility can be if it's cleverly designed.
The Works Moving on to the geekier side of CleanMyDrive, the software embodies new and efficient ways of maintaining your removable media. MacPaw has experience with this stuff – they're the authors of CleanMyMac, a utility they recommend for cleaning your Mac's built-in hard drives to keep your system speedy and healthy. I've tested that one too, and it works like a charm!
CleanMyDrive uses the same cleaning algorithms to clean your removable media from annoying service files and trashed data. If you've ever seen files like DS_Store, .Spotlight etc., you know what I'm talking about. It eradicates Windows junk too. It not only frees up significant amounts of space, it helps you stay better organized.
For MacBook owners, CleanMyDrive will prove to be extremely handy. When you're out and about, you don't always have the time (or the patience) to properly eject every single one of your volumes. The "Eject All" function not only unplugs all your mounted drives much faster, it can also send your Mac into sleep mode, automatically. Which means you can put the lid back on and be on your way in a giffy.
The Good Doing everything it promises and then some, CleanMyDrive really deserves a good pat on the shoulder from this reviewer. My congrats go out to UI designer Paul Grozyan and UX expert Sergey Kudryashov, who have successfully combined flawless design and excellent function in a 3MB package.
The Bad CleanMyDrive requires an Intel-based Macintosh and OS X 10.7 or greater. In other words, OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and OS X 10.5 (Leopard) are out. Not the system specs you'd expect from such a simple utility. Then again, you have to keep up with the times.
The Truth If the review didn't sell you on this app, keep in mind that it's a bargain. It's free to download and use indefinitely. It makes storage-related chores a breeze. And you'll forget it's even on. It's handy, yet unobtrusive. And it looks great! Seriously, just get it now before MacPaw slaps a price tag on it.
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