How do I delete all my junk photos from my decives easily ?

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We have an iMac late 2012 and a MacBook Pro late 2011. On each we have hundreds of junk photos we should delete that are either duplicates or not needed. Both devices are grinding to a halt under the weight all this digital junk. I do use CleanMyMac 3 which helps a bit but we need a big clean out.

Is there a way to sync both these devices so we can do this ?
 
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First, you should get rid of CleanMyMac. It can cause issues. A better, more reliable, well reviewed, and solid product is the excellent free program Onyx, available form here:

https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html

It's been around for quite some time. I use it religiously. along with the excellent commercial program Tech Tool Pro.

Note that you'll need to get the correct version, based on the Mac OS you using. Speaking of that, what exact Mac OS are you using on each machine?

Another good free program for graphically identifying large files is GrandPerspective:

http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

Secondly, are the photos the only "junk" you have on each machine? A good place to check is in your Downloads folder.

As for software to help in finding duplicate files, here are the results of a google search of "Mac software for finding duplicates of files/folders/etc":

https://www.cleverfiles.com/howto/best-duplicate-file-finder-mac.html

One of those hits is this one:

https://www.cleverfiles.com/howto/best-duplicate-file-finder-mac.html

The reason I point that one out is that Disk Drill is a well respected program
 
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honestone, thanks so much for all that valuable information. I've got a lot to look at in those links.

How long has CleanMyMac been out of favour with the Mac community and have I been duped buying the software ?

We have our Macbook and iMac running on Yosemite who these run better using High Sierra ?
 
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I am not sure if, and how long, CleanMyMac has been out of favor with the Mac community. I just remember seeing it mentioned, both here and in a couple of other places, about it not being "good" to use. Of course the $40 price tag (and $20 upgrade fee) is not cheap, especially when there are other excellent choices out there, like the free Onyx, and Coctail, which costs $19.95. I have asked one of our resident experts, Cory Cooper, to "chime in" about this. He is one of the most valuable resources on this site!

Both of your Macs can run High Sierra, but High Sierra has some drawbacks. If you wanted to upgrade the OS, Sierra, OS 10.12.6, would be a better choice. However, before you even consider doing such an upgrade, as I mentioned before, you need to do two things on a frequent basis:

1. Perform disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs, from a software perspective. While CleanMyMac (and Onyx) perform quite a number of useful tasks, it is not enough (as you have realized with duplicates of files/no longer needed stuff). You can actually do a good amount of disk cleanup on your own.

2. Make backups to an external device. That is such a critical task! So many folks come here asking for assistance, but they do not have a backup. There are two ways to make a backup: 1) use Time Machine, which is free and part of the Mac OS. 2) use either SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to make a bootable backup/clone. While both of them are not free, note that I said bootable. It would be good for you to look at this thread regarding backups:

https://www.mac-help.com/threads/backups-backups-backups.223959/

It has a lot of useful information about backups.
 

Cory Cooper

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Hello,

There are many utilities that cause far more problems than they help. Some can corrupt your data, some can slow your Mac to a crawl, some are even malware disguised as a utility app.

-There are several third-party utilities and software that one should totally stay away from: MacKeeper, MacCleaner, many Norton utilities, many antivirus apps.
-There are some that are borderline, seem to be OK, but I don't normally recommend them: CleanMyMac, Carbonite, Dropbox, etc. CleanMyMac seems to have been updated to be a useful app these days, from what I have read recently.
-There are many that are recommended highly: DiskWarrior, Drive Genius, TechTool Pro, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac, OnyX, Cocktail, ClamXAV, etc.

I don't recommend running antivirus apps with real-time or on-access scanning enabled. I also don't like background monitoring processes like TechTool Pro's eDrive, Drive Genius BootWell/DrivePulse, etc. I actually install all my utilities on an external HD, so I can diagnose/troubleshoot/perform maintenance when it is convenient, and manually as I see fit. I can also use them on multiple Macs that way.

Also, I am not a big fan of Adobe and Microsoft software any longer, as they have become very bloated and annual subscription based. Adobe Flash is one of the worst offenders of all, second to MacKeeper. If you need Flash capability, I recommend you run Google Chrome and enable its built-in, sandboxed version of Flash.

There are others, so feel free to ask us our thoughts before you try/purchase.

Hope that helps,

C
 
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Thanks Cory for all that! It is definitely helpful.

Not sure, though, what issues there are with Tech Tool Pro's eDrive. I have been using it for so long, and never had issues. In fact, it is "something like" the (hidden) Recovery HD partition installed by an installation of the Mac OS. I really like being able to restart either of my Macs from the eDrive. But I am willing to listen to concerns about it.

Also, to install Tech Tool Pro on an external drive/partition, it would need to be bootable, which means a Mac OS would need to be installed first. Yeah, I have my SuperDuper! backups, but that is not a viable solution, as it already contains Tech Tool Pro from each Mac's internal SSD. And when I start SuperDuper!, it first erases what was on the backup previously.
 
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You guys a very deep into this :)
It may take the rest of my retirement to catch up !
Once again thanks for the very complete direction.
 
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You guys a very deep into this :)
It may take the rest of my retirement to catch up !
Once again thanks for the very complete direction.

You're welcome! If you make the effort, it will not be that bad. Just don't be afraid to ask questions.
 

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