Optimizers and tweaking software abound on Windows, but Mac users have far fewer choices to speed-up their system. That's partly because Macs generally self-maintain better than PCs but if your Mac is slowing down, you might find running MacKeeper helps breathe new life into it.
MacKeeper is an all-in-one solution that includes hard drive cleaning tools as well as backup, shredder and even online features such as anti-theft registration and real time assistance.
The interface is well spread out with all the core features down the left hand side and the actions in the middle. The best thing to do is start with Fast Cleanup which takes a few minutes to scan your entire system for things that might be slowing your system down, bloated files etc. I was amazed by how much junk MacKeeper found particularly in the Binaries Cutter (almost 1GB) Logs Cleaner and Cache Cleaner (over 2GB!). It also revealed almost 1GB of language files I'll probably never need.
However, the scan is rather slow - it took almost 5 minutes - although its a small price to pay considering everything that it finds and reveals on your system. I wasn't sure what the Binaries Cutter would do but a handy explanation of all the different cleaners made me realize that all I would be losing is the ability to use the applications on PPC machines - so I might as well get rid of it!
The Duplicates finder was particularly outstanding. I had almost 15GB of duplicated files and MacKeeper allows you to drill down to see where they are. However, be very careful with this as it can remove iMovie files that have been duplicated by iMovie from the raw footage and thus leave your projects with missing footage. The Old Files feature was not so impressive either as it seemed to take metadata from the files to assess the age rather than the actual time they had been left unused on the system. I strongly recommend that also make a backup of all your media before using MacKeeper because you may find it remove photos and videos that it considers duplicates and leave you with gaps in your media collection.
There are other tools such as a Shredder, Data Encrypter and Undelete tool as well as online help with "Geek on Demand" plus some kind of online registration that tracks your Mac if stolen.
User experiences with MacKeeper are mixed - some find it does a great job while others aren't so impressed especially when it comes to removing it.
Overall, MacKeeper is an elegant and comprehensive maintenance tool which should speed-up your system.
