THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE FREE REGISTRY CLEANER MY COMPUTER IS WORKING SO MUCH BETTER. OH YES IT IS NICE TO KNOW SOMEONE KNOWS WHAT THE WORD FREE MEANS. THANKS SO MUCH RECOMMENDING TO ALL MY FRIENDS. DEB&KC-I have been looking around for a registry cleaner for a while. A number of the tools on offer can be used to clean your Mac. Parallel's Toolbox costs £15.99 a year, and offers a collection of useful tools. You can read about Toolbox's various features. Is There a Registry Cleaner for Mac? The short answer is no. The long answer is that Macs don’t have a registry since macOS is based on FreeBSD, an operating system that is very different from Windows OSs. Hence why most Mac cleaners focus on deleting cache files, unused programs, hoarded junk data, logs and many more. If the Windows Registry is a place where system and application settings are stored, then the Mac equivalent of the Windows Registry would be a series of.plist files in several preferences folder on the Mac. Download CCleaner for free. Clean your PC of temporary files, tracking cookies and browser junk! Get the latest version here.
The Windows Registry is a set of files that contains settings for your Windows PC - such as what program to use to open HTML files, when your antivirus program should run, or what desktop background you use. You can read more about the Windows Registry at Wikipedia.
Over time, the Registry can become cluttered with missing or broken items as you install, upgrade, and uninstall software and updates. CCleaner can help you clean out the Registry so you'll have fewer errors. The Registry will run faster, too.
To clean your Registry:
- In CCleaner, click the Registry icon at left.
- Optionally, select the items under Registry Clean you wish to scan (they are all checked by default). This is for advanced users - we recommend you leave all the items checked.
- Click Scan for Issues. You'll see a progress bar and a list of potential issues.
- Once the scan is finished, you can review the list of issues (this is really for advanced users). Or, to save the list to a text file, right-click anywhere inside the list, and then click Save to text file...
- If you want CCleaner to skip any of the issues it's found, right-click the issue, and then click Add to Exclude List. You can review the current set of excluded files, folders, and Registry entries in the Exclude section of the Options pane.
- Click Fix selected issues... to fix the Registry problems.
- You are prompted to backup the Registry first. We strongly recommend you click Yes.
- Choose a location where to save the Registry backup. The file name ends in .REG. Click Save.
- CCleaner displays the first Registry problem and a proposed solution. For example:
This dialog box shows an example of an issue found by CCleaner's Registry Cleaner. - Do one of the following:
Free Mac Registry Cleaner
- To fix all issues at once, click Fix All Selected Issues. We recommend this choice for most users. Click OK. Once all issues have been fixed, click Close.
- Review the issue and proposed solution. To fix this specific issue, click Fix Issue. CCleaner will then go to the next issue. To skip this issue and go to the next one, click the >> button. You will have to repeat this process for all of the issues CCleaner found.
- To stop making changes to the Registry, click Close. Note: If you do this by mistake, just click Fix Selected Issues... again.
Mac Registry Cleaner
Note: To scan one type of Registry entry in the Registry Integrity list, right-click it, and then click Scan [Registry Type].
When making the big move to a new OS, it always takes time to settle in and learn the ropes. Switching from Windows to macOS is not an exception. While these operating systems obviously don’t share interface similarities, they branch even more under the hood. In other words, it’s not just lack of Start Screen and Menu and touchpad scrolling in reverse. When opening Command Prompt in Windows, you enter DOS commands to get around, on macOS, however, it’s Unix commands that you need to use. Such distinct changes affect the way you interact with your computer and the way you approach its maintenance.
Windows vs macOS: How to Clean Registry on Mac
On PC, registry is where the information about your settings and preferences is stored. This refers to all settings for third party programs as well as Windows operating system itself. Often, numerous installations and uninstallations lead to registry entries becoming broken or outdated. The broken registry then results in error messages popping up in specific programs. Windows even features built-in tools to help fix such errors. The tools can be used through Command Prompt (Admin) by typing specific commands.
On the other hand, macOS has and needs no registry. It is based on Unix and manages third-party parameters and settings by keeping them in Mac Preference Files, which come in .plist format. Some of the preference files can be found within application’s contents. To access the file, go to Finder>Applications and Right Click the app of your choice, choose Show Package Contents.
Despite the differences in format and name, Mac preference files are also subject to corruption. To fix the corrupted .plist file you will have to delete it from your Mac. This allows the application to rebuild the default file and lets you set new preferences from scratch. The app needs to be relaunched in order to re-create the file.
Note: If you are tinkering with system preferences, you will need to fully restart your Mac so it can rebuild the missing preference files.
Access Preferences by opening Finder window and pressing Shift+⌘+G. In the popped up Go to the folder window paste ~/Library/Preferences and hit Go. This is where all user specific Preference files are stored.
Note: Follow the same steps to the directory /Library/Preferences (without the tilde ~) to get to the preferences set for all local users.
To make finding the correct file easier, set Show Items to “in a list” and use Search to sort out unneeded files. Applications’ .plist files normally follow the same naming pattern — com.company.application.plist, where company is the vendor and application shares the name of the program. Use that to you advantage to speed up the process of locating the right preference file even further, beware of the exceptions though.
Best Mac Registry Cleaner
Most applications will have the exact name of the app within the name of a .plist file. Make sure to eliminate the spaces. Once you have found the files you need — drag them to Trash and launch the corresponding application to rebuilt the default preference file. Don’t forget to make a backup copy and keep it until you are sure that the application works as intended and .plist files are rebuilt.
Preferences/Registry Cleaner for Mac
While we have already established, that Apple computers don’t have a registry, and, therefore, don’t need a cleaner, it’s important to stay away from any freeware apps (or paid ones for that matter) that claim to do the job. Applications that promise to provide registry cleanup for MacBook will do you no good and should be avoided.
Moreover, take Preferences cleaning utilities with a grain of salt as well. Preferences should not be removed on regular basis, but rather only when you start experiencing specific issues with an app. In such cases, it’s best to look up information online regarding the preference files that need to be reset. Alternatively, you can locate the needed preference file yourself by following the tips above. Make sure to create backup copies to prevent potential consequences of the trial and error method.