Aug 13, 2018 National Clean Out Your Computer Day! It's a great idea to nudge me into doing some cleaning. After reading this post, I have been using iMyMac Mac Cleaner to remove purgeable space on my Mac to save more storage. It helps a lot to organize my Mac regularly.
- A Few Hints on Cleaning Free Space on a Mac Device. December 07, 2017. One of the main reasons why a Mac runs slowly is insufficient free space on its hard drive. In this guide, we provide six useful tips on how to clean your device. There are few tips that you can do on your own to fix the sad situation when your Mac’s performance suffers.
- Clean Up - Fresh Your Mac Storage Space. Junk files piling up on your Mac? Surely, you need a Mac data cleaning tool to fresh your Mac space. Apeaksoft Mac Cleaner is the powerful Mac cleaning and managing software which can help you remove any junk/unnecessary/old/large files on Mac and keep Mac system in good state.
Remove Advanced Mac Cleaner rogue optimization tool from Mac OS X to stop its frustrating alerts and undo the concomitant bad effects it calls forth.
Update: October 2019
Advanced Mac Cleaner usually appears on Mac boxes out of the blue and floods the victim’s experience with annoying warning messages. Also known as Mac Cleaner, it dupes the user into thinking that their machine has got numerous problems hindering normal performance. According to the fake alerts, the operating system’s productivity is impacted by junk files, duplicate objects, unneeded login items, crammed up cache, trash and logs, as well as rogue apps that are claimed to occupy excessive hard disk space and thus reduce the processing speed as well as responsiveness to commands. The number of these wrongfully reported items is flagrant, going over 1000 even on a well-tuned or new Mac computer.
It’s not a commonplace distribution practice that’s leveraged by Advanced Mac Cleaner makers to promote their nasty brainchild. A great deal of infected users have caught this pseudo optimizer when installing free tools such as FileZilla or updating Adobe Flash Player via downloads from unofficial sources. In these cases, the setup wizard prompts you that an extra applet will be installed as a bonus to make the Mac run smoother. Some people are prudent enough to avoid such offers, which are generally known to deliver adware programs, but this caution doesn’t always help. Unless the bundle is manually unchecked and thus opted out of from the start, Advanced Mac Cleaner will still be installed in the background.
Furthermore, the culprit may additionally cross-promote affiliated scareware like Mac Adware Cleaner by means of prompts on its GUI. To add insult to injury, it may hijack the victim’s default web browser and redirect their traffic to landing pages pushing its licensed version or a copy of another rogue system utility, such as Mac Tonic or Mac Auto Fixer. The malware is also known to propagate alongside browser redirect viruses and persistent adware apps that affect the victim’s web surfing experience. One of the notorious campaigns pushing the scareware in question relies on sketchy browser alerts that report alleged infection with a combo of 3 viruses called Tapsnake, CronDNS, and Dubfishicv. The victims are redirected to phony web pages that mimic AppleCare and insist on urgent download of Advanced Mac Cleaner to sort out the problem that isn’t there in the first place. It appears that the gang behind the rogue program in question is deploying a well-orchestrated malicious marketing campaign with a distinct flavor of social engineering.
Mac Cleaner Free Space Secure
The user may be unaware of this forcible setup from the get-go, but not until a message like the one above pops up. It says that a huge number of issues have been found, specifying this information as follows “Issues may include duplicate files, system & internet junk, rogue software & recoverable drive space. Fix and enjoy a performance boost.” The ‘Start Repair’ button, if clicked, takes you to the junk application’s main interface that displays high improvement potential for each cluster of problems. Obviously, cleaning the purported bugs is a paid service. At that point, it’s reasonable to contemplate over what’s happening: you are being told to pay for rectifying issues that do not exist. It’s certainly the best move to get rid of the Advanced Mac Cleaner scam rather than follow the evildoers’ recommendations.
Another flavor of this scareware problem surfaced in October 2019. It was precipitated by a release of Apple’s macOS Catalina 10.15. After upgrading their operating system to the new version, numerous users started experiencing obnoxious popup activity with Advanced Mac Cleaner at its core. The annoying notifications say, “helperamc will damage your computer. You should move it to the Bin.” The process mentioned on these alerts is spawned by the rogue system tool under scrutiny and can be seen in the Activity Monitor, along with other related executables called “amcuninstall” and “hlpramc”.
Here is what’s happening: the latest macOS build, evidently, leverages an improved algorithm to identify potentially harmful apps. In particular, it will flag a program as a malicious one if it was installed on an unknown date, if its installer was downloaded from an unverified source, or in case some other telltale signs of sketchy activity are spotted. To let the users know about such suspicious objects, the system displays the above-mentioned popup dialogs. In this situation, the infection is probably in a dormant state and doesn’t manifest itself conspicuously. The Catalina update has simply unearthed the issue due to new security perks it delivers. Unfortunately, although the warnings include a “Move to Bin” button, it doesn’t work as intended. Therefore, the victims have to do their homework and find a way to remove Advanced Mac Cleaner despite its persistence.
Advanced Mac Cleaner manual removal for Mac
The steps listed below will walk you through the removal of this application. Be sure to follow the instructions in the order specified.
- Open up the Utilities folder as shown below
- Locate the Activity Monitor icon on the screen and double-click on it
- Under Activity Monitor, find the entry for Advanced Mac Cleaner, select it and click Quit Process
- A dialog should pop up, asking if you are sure you would like to quit the Advanced Mac Cleaner (it can be manifested as an object named helperamc) executable. Select the Force Quit option
- Expand the Go menu in Apple Finder and select Go to Folder
- Type or paste the following string in the folder search dialog: /Library/LaunchAgents
- Once the LaunchAgentsdirectory opens up, find the following entries in it and move them to Trash:
- com.pcv.hlpramc.plist
- com.pcv.helperamc.plist
- com.pcv.amcuninstall.plist
- com.PCvark.AdvancedMacCleaner.plist
- Use the Go to Folder lookup feature again to navigate to the folder named ~/Library/LaunchAgents. When this path opens, look for the same entries (see above) and send them to Trash
- Similarly, go to the ~Library/Application Support folder. Locate and move the following entries to Trash:
- Advanced Mac Cleaner
- amc
- Click the Go button again, but this time select Applications on the list. Find the entry for Advanced Mac Cleaner entry on the interface, right-click on it and select Move to Trash. If user password is required, go ahead and enter it
- Now go to Apple Menu and pick the System Preferences option
- Select Accounts and click the Login Items button. Mac OS will come up with the list of the items that launch when the box is started up. Locate Advanced Mac Cleaner there and click on the '-' button
Use automatic tool to completely uninstall Advanced Mac Cleaner from your Mac
- Download and install MacBooster application (read review). The tool provides both optimization and security features for your Mac. Before you get down to obliterating Advanced Mac Cleaner virus proper, consider checking your machine for other security risks and performance issues by hitting the Scan button. Download Now
- Proceed to the Uninstaller feature, find Advanced Mac Cleaner on the Applications list and have MacBooster completely eliminate all components of the app from your Mac by clicking Uninstall in the bottom part of the GUI. Doing so will ensure all components of the malware and its remainders, which may have not been removed in the manual way, will be thoroughly cleaned up.
FAQ
Unlike benign software, Advanced Mac Cleaner is a stubborn app that attempts to complicate the uninstall process. It means that you need to circumvent its hindrance before deleting the associated components and files. This adds an extra step to the removal logic. In most cases, the following workflow does the trick:
- Open the Activity Monitor, find an entry named “helperamc”, “hlpramc” or another process with “amc” part in its name, and quit the malicious executable.
- Look for related files (com.pcv.hlpramc.plist, com.pcv.helperamc.plist, com.pcv.amcuninstall.plist, com.PCvark.AdvancedMacCleaner.plist, Advanced Mac Cleaner, amc) in the LaunchAgents and Application Support folders. Remove these objects if found.
- Go to the Finder and select Applications. Spot ‘Advanced Mac Cleaner’ app and move it to the Trash. Empty the Trash when done.
Ideally, this technique should eradicate the scareware, but with the caveat that the files may vary as new versions of Advanced Mac Cleaner appear in the wild. Stay tuned for updates in the guide above to make sure your removal efforts are effective.
Advanced Mac Cleaner is a rogue system utility that wrongfully purports to look for and fix Mac performance issues and privacy risks. Instead of carrying through with these promises, it reports non-existent problems and tries to pressure the user into buying its licensed version to unlock the repair features. This scareware is installed behind the user’s back, usually arriving with complex app bundles camouflaged as one useful program.
At first sight, it may seem that the impact of Advanced Mac Cleaner is restricted to annoying scan reports and scary-looking popup alerts. That’s a misconception. This fake optimizer isn’t safe to use, because it can harvest your sensitive information and send it to the cybercriminals in charge of the campaign. Your usernames and passwords, as well as credit card information, are potentially at risk as long as this pest is running on your Mac.
No, it’s not. The huge amount of negative feedback about this program speaks volumes about its dirty practices, not to mention the obvious elements of foul play in its modus operandi. Advanced Mac Cleaner is distributed via covert software bundles and fake virus alerts shown on numerous malicious websites. Once installed, it deluges the host system with deceptive scans and popup alerts reporting hundreds or even thousands of imaginary performance and security issues. The objective of this brainwashing is to coerce the victim to purchase the app’s license, which is supposedly a prerequisite of addressing the detected threats. Another shady quirk is that Advanced Mac Cleaner is harder to uninstall than regular Mac applications. All in all, this scareware is neither legit nor safe.
Your Mac is smart enough to understand what files are redundant and can be removed. Your Mac calls these files Purgeable Data. Usually, it’s about outdated caches, duplicates, and any kind of files that can be deleted without any impact on your system.
To see purgeable data, you should enable the Optimize Storage feature on Mac. Go to the Apple menu, click About this Mac and then the Storage tab. If you’ve activated storage optimization, you’ll see that next to colour-coded sections for Documents, Apps, Photos, etc, there’s one called Purgeable.
The Optimize Storage feature allows you to quickly identify files that are taking up lots of space on your startup disk and either delete them or move them to iCloud, depending on the type of file. There are a couple of different ways to use it, one of which uses CleanMyMac and which adds an extra tab – ’System Junk’ – to the Manage Storage window. Here’s method one.
The fastest way to clear Purgeable space from Mac
If you have CleanMyMac installed on your Mac, you’ll have noticed an additional section – System Junk. These are system files CleanMyMac has identified that can be safely trashed. All you need to do is click on System Junk and click Run.
If you don’t have CleanMyMac installed, it’s available in Setapp – just launch Setapp, search for CleanMyMac and click Install.
Here’s what to do next.
- Launch CleanMyMac, click the Smart Scan tab and then click Scan.
- When CleanMyMac has finished scanning, click Run to perform cleaning.
Also you can perform clean up with Cleanup section – System Junk, Photo Junk, Mail attachments, etc and review the results. You may be surprised by the results and by just how much space you can reclaim.
Get CleanMyMac to clear disk space
The best app for identifying and removing all the junk from your Mac. Free up storage in one click.
To see in detail what CleanMyMac has found in each section, click Review Details. From there, you can uncheck any items you don’t want to delete. When you’re ready, click Clean to delete the junk.
When you’re done, you should have got rid of several gigabytes of purgeable data and freed up lots of room on your hard disk.
Other methods for identifying and removing purgeable data
Disk Drill, also available in Setapp, has a Clean Up section, which allows you to identify and delete files you don’t need.
- Install Disk Drill from Setapp if you haven’t done so already.
- Launch it and click ‘Clean Up’ in the toolbar.’ In the next window, click ‘Let’s get started.’ Click on the drive you want to clean up, then click Scan.
- Disk Drill will now scan your Mac identifying all the files on the drive you selected. When it’s done, it will list the folders on the disk in order of the amount of disk space they are occupying. By default, it doesn’t display system or hidden files. To display those, click the left most menu and select ‘All files (including system and hidden ones).’
- Starting at the top, click the drop down arrow to display files inside the folder. If there are more folders inside, click the drop down arrows on those. You’ll soon tunnel down to the files that are taking up the most space on your drive – they’ll be labelled in red.
- To change the way Disk Drill displays files, use the other menus. For example, you can display files by the percentage of the total disk space they use, or only display files that take up more than the space your specify.
- To delete a file you no longer need, click the checkbox next to it and click ‘Remove file.’
Another way to free up disk space is to get rid of duplicate files. Gemini, another app available in Setapp, does exactly that.
- Install Gemini from Setapp and launch it.
- Read the information cards that appear and click Next when you’re done.
- When you see the window with a big ‘+’ in it, drag a folder onto it to identify duplicates. For example, open a Finder window and drag your user folder onto the ‘+’.
- Gemini will start scanning the folder for duplicate files. When it reaches your iTunes and Photos libraries, it will ask you to open those applications. You can either do so, or skip them and Gemini will leave those libraries alone.
- When it’s finished, click Clean Up to remove all the duplicates it’s found, or click Review Duplicates to select the ones you want to remove yourself.
- In the review window, click on the drop down arrow next to folders of duplicates, make sure they really are duplicates, then check the box next to the one you want to delete and click Remove.
How to reduce Purgeable space manually
Mac Space Cleaner Free
It’s always better if someone can do the cleaning for you, both at home and on your Mac. Nevertheless, it’s a good idea to learn how to free up space manually. While purgeable information can be restored at any time, there’s little risk you’ll remove any important data:
- Click on the Apple menu at the left of the Finder menu bar and choose About this Mac.
- Click the storage tab and you’ll see a bar with different colored sections on it. Each of these sections describes a specific type of data. Documents is first, followed by System, then Apps, and so on. Towards the right, you’ll see a section called Purgeable.
- Click Manage to free up space on your Mac. The next window that opens, launches with the first tab on the left, Recommended, selected. You’ll see four options. The first allows you to store all files on the Desktop or in your Documents folder in iCloud and only keep those you’ve opened recently on your Mac. To enable it, Click Store in iCloud.
- The next three options allow you to remove movies and TV programmes you’ve already watched in iTunes from your Mac; empty the Trash automatically every 30 days; and review files in your Documents folder and delete any you don’t need.
- Once you’ve been through the Recommended options, you can click on the other sections on the left and follow the instructions to either delete files or review them before deciding what to do.
Try all these apps for free
Get a huge set of top apps for keeping your Mac in shape. Best utilities in one pack, give it a go!
Space Mac Cleaner For Mac
Without regular cleanups, purgeable data can pile up on your Mac, lightning fast. In fact, the redundant file caches and duplicates can occupy up to 30% of your disk space. That’s a lot of storage you could use for valuable things. With cleaning utilities and a few minutes of your time, you can free it up and forget about the problem of limited storage.