LeCoqRoti
Inbox cleanup arrives: Gmail tools join the suite
The update brings mail management into the fold: new tools for cleaning and organising a Gmail inbox directly from the app. It is a quiet but practical addition for anyone whose email has become a second storage volume.
Instant scan in 20 seconds: a session from launch to File Scope
- Grant full disk access on macOS 27, then launch the app.
- Run an instant system scan to surface junk, mail attachments and large files.
- Use File Scope to inspect the memory map and spot forgotten folders.
- Apply the cleaning suggestions, or switch to the shredder for permanent deletion.
- Check the protection module if a recent download felt suspect.
The interface keeps these actions close without crowding the window. Alongside the core cleaning, MacPaw offers a separate App Cleaner & Uninstaller for thorough app removal — a hint that CleanMyMac itself is meant to stay broad rather than drill into every niche.
A workflow: reclaiming space before a large export
Suppose you are a video maker preparing to render a 40‑minute documentary. The project file alone is 18 GB, and macOS has started warning about low disk space on a 512 GB internal drive. Cancelling the export is not an option; clearing room is. Here is one path through CleanMyMac 5.7.0 that takes about twelve minutes.
Start with the instant system scan. It surfaces 4.3 GB of user cache files, 2.1 GB of old iOS software updates still sitting in ~/Library/iTunes/, and 700 MB of Xcode derived data you had forgotten. Tick all three categories, then switch to the large & old files tool. Sort by size descending. There: a 22 GB After Effects auto‑save folder from a project finished six months ago, buried inside a client archive. Select it, check the path preview to be certain, and queue it for the shredder.
Before committing, open File Scope. The visual map confirms that your Documents and Creative Cloud Files folders are the real heavyweights. You notice a bulge labelled “Render queue backups” — 8 GB of DPX sequences you had assumed were already on the external RAID. Drag the folder to the shredder list directly from the map. One click runs the combined deletion. The export proceeds without a hitch.
Scan refused on launch: the full disk access hurdle
A few rough edges surface often enough to be worth noting. None are show‑stoppers, but they can confuse a first‑time user.
Full disk access not granted before launch. On macOS 27 the app will simply refuse to scan. The fix is to open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access, toggle the switch for CleanMyMac, then quit and relaunch. If you drag the app from a disk image directly to Applications and launch it immediately, the permission prompt sometimes fails to appear. Restarting the Mac after the copy resolves it every time.
Shredder claims a file is “in use.” This usually means a background process holds a file handle. Close the likely app — often QuickTime, Preview, or a Finder preview column — and retry. If the file still resists, a quick logout and login releases the lock.
Gmail tools not seeing the inbox. The new mail module requires a Google account added to Internet Accounts in System Settings, with Mail enabled. If you use a third‑party client like Mimestream or Spark without the system‑level integration, the tool will show zero messages. Add the account once, let it sync for a few minutes, and the module populates.
Malware protection: sharing XProtect definitions without conflict
CleanMyMac works alongside rather than against the grain of the operating system. The protection module reads the same malware‑definition format as XProtect, so it does not conflict with Gatekeeper. Running a scan does not clear the quarantine database, and you can safely use both layers.
Because it respects ~/Library/Caches structure, it plays well with creative suites. After cleaning Adobe cache folders, the apps rebuild them on next launch — slower for five minutes, then back to normal. For developers, the tool can clear Homebrew’s cache and old simulator data without touching the cellar itself. If you also keep App Cleaner & Uninstaller from MacPaw installed, the two share a preference domain; leftover‑scan settings propagate between them, so a file type you mark as “ignore” in one is skipped by the other.
Spotlight integration is light but useful. Files queued in the shredder are indexed until deletion, so you can verify a path with a quick mdls command in Terminal before committing. The large‑files tool also writes a temporary Spotlight index of its own scan results, which means sorting by “last opened” is instant even on a cold volume.
Apple Silicon scan speed: under 20 seconds for a 60%‑full drive
On an Apple Silicon Mac, the instant scan completes in under twenty seconds on a 1 TB drive that is 60 % full. The Intel build is roughly twice as slow on equivalent hardware, though still quick enough to run while a browser and Slack remain open. Memory pressure stays low: during a full scan, the process hovers around 180 MB of RAM. The disk image is 140 MB; installed, the app occupies 310 MB.
Stability over a two‑week period with daily scans is uneventful. No kernel panics, no Finder freezes traceable to the app. One crash occurred when the protection module tried to scan a mounted network share that dropped mid‑connection, and the app handled it with a clean error dialogue rather than a hang. The Gmail module is new and feels it: scrolling a mailbox with 12,000 messages introduces a half‑second lag on the first load. After a cache warm‑up, it settles.
Battery impact is modest. On a MacBook Air M2, a full system scan plus a large‑file sweep consumes around 3 % of charge. Leaving the real‑time protection monitor enabled adds a background process that sips roughly 1 % per hour, comparable to the Finder’s own file‑change agent.
Monthly privacy routine: encrypted interviews and a local Obsidian vault
A policy researcher based in Berlin uses a MacBook Pro shared between fieldwork and home. Interviews arrive as encrypted audio files; transcripts live in a local Obsidian vault. Once a month she runs a routine that is as much about hygiene as disk space.
She opens CleanMyMac and starts with the protection module, scanning the Downloads folder where collaborators occasionally share files via services that bypass institutional firewalls. Nothing flagged, but she notes the scan log. Then she moves to the mail tools: the new Gmail module identifies 1.2 GB of attachments already saved locally, mostly press‑release PDFs from 2023. She deletes the remote copies and shreds the local duplicates in one sequence. Finally, she uses the permanent‑deletion tool on a folder of unredacted draft transcripts that had been “deleted” months ago but sat intact in a hidden .Trash folder on an SD card. The shredder writes three passes of random data and the folder name disappears from the volume bitmap.
In short: the app serves not as a dramatic overhaul but as a predictable Saturday‑morning ritual — a quiet way to keep a working machine tidy and a research archive uncluttered.
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