Description
CleanGenius Pro is a utility that handles several routine tasks such as cleaning caches, removing junk files and uninstalling applications. It requires Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or later.
Price: US$12.99 at www.easemac.com
US$2.99 for a more limited version at the Mac App Store
Disclosure
We got the full-featured product for free from the developer in exchange of a review and a giveaway of 15 pro licences.
Key features
It was the right moment to review this kind of utility since my Mac needed a bit of a sweep. Odd behavior started to creep in lately in the Finder. It never hurts to fine tune Mac OS X in such circumstances.
Installation wasn’t complicated. It was just a matter of copying the app to the Applications folder and launching it.
The first step was to scan for files that should be deleted. Obviously, I decided to check all the boxes but the user trash and downloads. Those are files I prefer to manage manually. The scan took only a few seconds, and it came up with the promise to clean 219 files for 4.24 GB of space.
At that point, my first reaction was to look at the path to files, in order to inspect them a little. What did CleanGenius want to delete, and did it seem necessary? It seemed logical to get rid of plenty of logs for apps that seem to accumulate them, and apps that are gone from my computer.
Reviewing is the kind of step that I believe you have to take beforehand. Who knows if a utility won’t delete a precious file or two, making your life difficult? I read reviews from frustrated users at the App Store. I bet they worked with a blindfold.
After clicking on the Clean button, CleanGenius took a couple of minutes minutes to get the work done. It sounds reasonable since we are talking about moving more than 4 GB of files. Meanwhile, however, it was not giving clear signs of progress for me to realize how long it would take, and how things were going. A progress bar would have been welcome. On the other hand, all apps concerned by file deletions continued working properly when later launched. Sounds good to me.
Speaking of the interface, I have mixed feelings. It is rather pretty with gradients, but it does not feel Mac-like. It feels more like Windows software than anything else. I would recommend better integration with the look and feel of Mac OS X.
Then, I decided to uninstall a couple of unused applications. Unlike AppCleaner, CleanGenius responds to manual commands, rather than reacting to what you do in the Finder. This is so much better because it prevents deletion of app files when moving an alias to the Trash.
After giving CleanGenius my admin password, it deleted the five apps I wanted to get rid of. That means instant delete, without going through the Trash.
Finally, both in the app and my menu bar, the free space monitor was there to show me what I have left on my drives. I had the option to get warnings when free space would be below a selected level. After duplicating a folder filled with films and TV shows, my clean space bar turned from green to orange. Nice and subtle if you are about to run out of elbow room. It may be too subtle for some users, though.
I find the menu bar item a bit irritating because it takes so much space in there. I believe my bar already is too cluttered…
Another weakness is that if you want the menu bar item, you cannot quit CleanGenius. You either have to make it launch at login or to activate it yourself. The best thing to do would be the option to have a menu bar item available at all times, separately from the full app.
Summary
Overall, this is a nice piece of software, given that it is fairly young. It works nicely and fast. How does it compare to Onyx, which is free? Well, the price point makes Onyx a winner but development may change that over time.
I feel that the interface needs to be more Mac-like and responsive.
There should be more customization options, such as when to display the free space monitor menu bar item.
Rating
Three stars out of five. See the review guidelines to understand the ratings.