Speeding Up and Maintaining your Mac on lynda.com
It’s great when you have a brand new computer that runs fast and smoothly. But, over time, you’re probably going to start feeling your computer running slower. Is it a problem with the computer? Are you running software that’s too demanding? Is it time to upgrade? Check out my course on lynda.com – Speeding Up and Maintaining your Mac – for some tips on troubleshooting and fixing your speed problems.
Posted on January 30, 2015, in Digital Lifestyle, Productivity. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
Nick Brazzi 
Nick: In your Lynda.com course on Mac maintenance where you are discussing AppZapper, what if an application was removed before this app was installed (by dragging the application into the trash) but still has related (now orphaned) files stored on it in who knows where? Do you know of any software that can find those files and delete them?
Interesting. I don’t know of any tools that can do that. Here’s what I would try – if possible. Re-install that application. Try to re-install the same version that you had when it was on your computer originally. Then, use AppZapper to completely uninstall it. In most cases, I think that will take care of it.
Over the years I have installed numerous programs to test them and then deleted them. The problem is that I did not maintain a list and can’t remember them all. I know I can maybe get a clue by going in the preferences folder in my user library and looking at all the names with “com….” but I am sure some are no longer even available to download.
Thanks anyway. Your course is very useful and easy to follow.
Yeah. You’re in a tough spot. Hunting through and manually removing those files and folders can lead to trouble. Delete the wrong thing and it can cause other problems. You f there’s a tool for hunting down orphaned install files, I don’t know of it. That would be nice. I expect that one day you’ll move to a new computer or you may choose to do a fresh re-install of OS X on your current computer. When that happens, you can use something like AppZapper to keep things clean moving forward.