In a nutshell, if I were to proceed with the trial version, it could free up 2.83GB of space, but wouldn’t touch language files, clean up universal binaries, cache files or duplicate files. Nice.įinally, after a while, the scan completes (it can take 30min or more depending on your drive and number of files) and you can see what paying for the license gets you versus what it can do in the free trial version: Still scanning, but 6.05GB is a lotta space to free up. The display is quite interesting, actually, because as it goes along you can see what it’s analyzing and, in big type superimposed over the progress information, the total size of files it’s identified as safe to delete.Īt this point it’s 1.41 GB of space it’ll free up.Ī few minutes later, that number’s jumped up quite a bit:
These sort of programs always are most effective on the boot or “root” disk, though they can analyze secondary drives, flash drives, etc.Ĭlick on “Start Scan” and it’ll start analyzing the drive. I have one drive, so I don’t even need to select a source volume. Well, there’s only one button, so click on it.īefore we do, however, do read the description: Really what SpeedUp Mac does is delete files that you don’t need, including language add-on files for programs where you don’t ever use the language (like Chinese or Russian). When it’s done you’re at the main splash screen: Installation was easy enough, and every time you run it, you’ll need to grant it admin access, after which it zips through a quick initialization process:
To test out Stellar SpeedUp Mac (free trial, then $34.99 for a single system, $49.99 for every system in your family’s network) I installed it on my trusty Apple MacBook Pro w/ retina screen, a system with a 500GB SSD drive and 16GB of RAM. Programs are removed in Windows 8, for example, by using the “Add/Remove Program” control panel, not just dragging the app icon to the Trash. Windows is a bit better in this area, as it happens, with its package management design. A good reason to keep an eye on things and make sure you keep some space free.Ī third issue on the Mac side is that deleting an unused app often doesn’t actually remove all traces of it. Because of how operating systems run multiple programs simultaneously, running low on disk space can be a major performance problem and running out of space? That’ll kill your system, whether you’re on a Mac, PC or even a Linux system.
A big reason for this is because we users add custom cursors, themes, and most importantly install programs that start up when the system boots, run in the background, and generally suck up system resources, even months - or years - after we’re done using them.Īnother major consideration for system performance is the percentage of disk space you have empty and available. First off, while Mac systems aren’t as bad as Windows PCs, truth is that the longer you use a computer, the more it slows down.