14 DAY TRIAL // The more you work on a Mac, the more useless files your apps store on its hard drive. Leftover files and duplicates can reduce performance and take up precious space that could be used for more important data. In order to keep it running smoothly by removing unnecessary files, a third-party application, like Washing Machine, is recommended.
Washing Machine is a basic system clean-up tool designed to help you optimize your Mac’s performance by detecting and deleting caches, logs, language files and duplicates. In addition, the app also comes with a module to organize cluttered desktop folders, manage Dock icons and add smart folders to the Finder. The installation was accomplished with flying colors through a standard installation package that also included an uninstaller. Having both the installer and uninstaller so closely together is a big plus. One of Washing Machine’s most important assets is the polished and well-organized user interface that comes with beautifully colored icons which light up when hovered over. Moreover, working with the app does not require any advanced knowledge. At first launch, the initial screen displays tabs for the 3 major cycles: “Reclaim,” “Duplicates” and “Organize.” However, that is not the first thing you see.
Help overlays are displayed above every new screen you encounter, which hints at the fact that the utility is designed for beginners in matters of OS X clean-up.
The Reclaim module allowed us to select what to clean: caches, downloads, language files, logs or the Trash. You can click on the “i” icon below each section to open the help overlays that explain why you should tidy these files. After scanning a Mac system that had not been maintained for weeks, it discovered over 4 GB of disposable data.
Although cache files on your Mac are of various types, Washing Machine lists them under one category. It is up to you to decide which cache you want to delete from a list. Still, it would have been helpful to select certain cache categories (before and after scanning), such as user cache, system cache, Dashboard cache or DNS cache.
An interesting feature is the circle graph that breaks down selected locations (like cache or downloads) into segments, which you can click to inspect their contents. Since you can use both a list and the handy graph, browsing through detected junk files is like a walk in the park. Furthermore, Washing Machine auto-selects files that should be deleted. It excludes items such as logs with diagnostic reports and English file packs. The great thing is that you have total freedom to choose what to delete by toggling check boxes. Moreover, 3 deletion criteria (safe, aggressive or in between) can be used to select items based on their age and importance.
The application permanently deleted selected files (which amounted to over 4 GB) very quickly, but not before displaying a warning message. After the process, it showed how much space was rescued and allowed us to continue cleaning.
In the second main cycle, namely Duplicates, you can select several categories: folders, archives, movies, documents, music and pictures. Like most duplicate finders, Washing Machine lets you choose which locations to scan and what folders within these locations to exclude. It took a fair amount of time, about 7 minutes, to detect over 659 duplicates (4.7 GB in total) on a 300 GB disk. On the other hand, deleting the pile of files took just a few seconds.
This module offers a decent set of functions. First of all, duplicates are conveniently grouped into folders by category. In addition, you have the choice to keep all detected files, files on the boot drive, latest files or earliest files. The alternative way is to manually select duplicates, but this obviously leads to tedious work. We have discovered a flaw in this mechanism – the app cannot auto-select detected duplicates that were added to a folder at the same time. In this case, an option for auto-selecting all duplicates of a file, except for a designated ‘original,’ is needed. The Organize function will only allow you to send desktop items to either the home subfolders (Documents, Music, Pictures, etc.) or to a Desktop folder that it creates. Another option is to send them to the Trash, which is pretty redundant because it is easy enough to do so via the Finder. What makes matters worse is that you cannot manually select multiple items.
However, a drop-down menu enables you to send all items to either the home subfolders or the created Desktop folder. Also, the app automatically recognizes the format of each file and sends them to the appropriate home subfolder with just a click. Files sent to the Desktop folder are piled up into a single subfolder, though. Other functions include the ability to quickly add or remove dock icons from a single window, as well as to place smart folders (containing documents, PDFs, movies, etc.) to the Finder’s sidebar. Both these features are not very useful, as you can perform the same actions without the help of a third-party app, if you know how to decently operate a Mac.
