CleanMyMac X review: A solid scrubber with hit-or-miss malware removal

Price When Reviewed

$34.95 per year subscription ($149.95 one-time purchase)

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With Mac utilities, a multifaceted approach that offers several base functions can be excellent. There’s also a possibility that the developer overextended themselves trying to be everything to everyone, and the result is that some features aren’t as good as others, making you wonder about the value of the total app. 

CleanMyMac X is routinely updated (in November 2022 version 4.12 brought Ventura support, and a February 2023 update added the ability to remove Xcode images and a battery drain alert) and well cared for by its developer, MacPaw, but it does seem to be in danger of trying to do too much. The catch-all utility offers an assortment of modules with its core focus centered around identifying and cleaning out gigabytes upon gigabytes of unused system garbage. The modules are Smart Scan, System Junk, Mail Attachments, Trash Bins, Malware Removal, Privacy, Optimization, Maintenance, Uninstaller, Updater, Extensions, Space Lens, Large & Old Files, and Shredder.

CleanMyMac X gained a handy Menu Bar item in version 4.11 that provides useful information, such as drive capacities, CPU speeds, system temperature, system load, and network activity readouts. This has received a substantial update in the new version, and additional information such as your laptop’s battery, temperature, and health, your hard drive’s capacity and overall health, your free RAM capacity, and your CPU load and hardware temperature are on hand and readily accessible. Some nice tie-ins have been made with CleanMyMac X’s Space Lens feature, and it’s easy to see what’s gobbling up the most space on your Mac’s hard drive. The features are well-integrated.

The modules themselves generally live up to their purpose, and it’s handy to be able to do a general search for data that’s consuming large parts of your hard drive as well as drill down and enable or disable specific system-level extensions as needed. CleanMyMac X still runs a handy set of maintenance scripts, such as clearing the DNS cache and repairing file permissions, which help to keep things in order.

To its credit, CleanMyMac X offers some nice surprises, and I was able to recover more than 30GB of drive space as the program found unused files and disk images galore via my iCloud storage. Other features such as the Disk Lens and Uninstaller offered a clear view as to which folders were consuming the most drive space and a quick means of removing applications. 

The Updater and Malware Removal features

Unfortunately, CleanMyMac X has a couple of modules that are the app’s greatest hurdles. While well-intentioned and focused as marketing and selling points, the Updater function seems to only locate a smattering of available application updates, and it’s almost anyone’s guess as to what it will see and what will be glossed over.

My previous version of this review noted that the Updater module had missed significant updates to Zoom and Mozilla’s Firefox browser, both of which became vital to users during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. Once again, the Updater module located updates to the handy MacTracker utility and GraphicConverter editing program, but missed an update to Google Chrome, which was somewhat worrying. I’ve had much better luck with CoreCode’s MacUpdater, which can be purchased for $14.99 for a single user license and has been able to find just about every conceivable update for my Mac’s applications given its single-minded focus to this task as well as robust updates along the way.

Once again, the Malware removal module has gotten better but isn’t where it could be. After infecting my Mac with a fair amount of dubious software (including an infamous keystroke logger disguised as an Adobe Flash Player update), the Malware Removal module was able to diagnose and remove most of my malware. However, some still had to be torn out by the roots yet again by a free copy of Malwarebytes, which make one raise an eyebrow and wonder what else might be missed.

It’s not a question of whether MacPaw, creators of CleanMyMac X have backed themselves into a corner as much as whether CleanMyMac X can deliver on all it sets out to do. For the most part, the modules work well, the application’s introductions and tutorials are as inviting and informative as ever, and it’s nice to be able to easily dig down into component-level elements of your operating system. Still, the Malware Removal system’s not where it could be and it feels as if the Updater module is only catching updates from the most prominent developers or smaller third-party ones. This has been marketed as a core feature, but there are still applications devoted to finding software updates that handle this function much better than what CleanMyMac X seems to be capable of at present.

Bottom line

While CleanMyMac X performs most of its functions admirably and provides an excellent means of clearing gigabytes of unused system detritus/gunk off your Mac, it needs to catch up and perform equally well where each of its modules is concerned. There was some good progress with the Menu Bar in the CleanMyMac X 4.11.0 update, and version 4.11 is Ventura compatible, but there are still bugs to chase after that have the software in a position where promises the world, overreaches, and puts itself in a position that almost no one can hope to achieve.

Compare CleanMyMac to other Mac cleaner solutions – visit our round up of the Best Mac Cleaner software.

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