Spring Cleaning 8.0 for Mac

Reviewed by Robert Pritchett

What They Say

SPRING CLEANING is the all-in-one cleaning and privacy solution! Secure your privacy by cleaning out your Internet tracks! Boost performance by cleaning out stray or forgotten files! Protect information by creating encrypted archives on your Mac! See all of the changes that an update or installer made on your Mac! Whether it's routine maintenance or a deep cleaning, Spring Cleaning's powerful actions and tools help you every step of the way!

Spring Cleaning is the safe & easy way to:

·      Clean Your Mac

·      Boost performance

·      Regain disk space

·      Protect your privacy

Seeing is Believing!
Spring Cleaning’s specialized tools make it easy to find and organize the clutter so your Mac can operate trouble free!

NEW! Music Finder
Find all your favorite music files and import them into iTunes or burn them onto a CD!

NEW! Image Finder
Locate and manage your digital photos and import them into iPhoto.

NEW! Archive Finder
Process searches faster when you only search for your archived files and folders.

NEW! Widget Finder
Find the widgets you never use and easily disable or remove them entirely! Regain control over Dashboard, restore performance, and clear up disk space!

NEW! Universal Slimmer
Universal Slimmer finds all the applications that contain both PowerPC and Intel-specific "Universal" code. On your command, Universal Slimmer will automatically remove whichever code your Mac does not need! Reclaim your hard drive's space!

NEW! Disk Image Finder
Find and delete all those multi-megabyte disk images you forgot to throw away after you downloaded or installed your software!

NEW! Choose
Choose any set of volumes, files, and folders to navigate through and apply convenient actions to easily organize them!

IMPROVED! System Snapshot
System Snapshot is a separate application that allows you to scan your system and see any changes that took place since your last scan. It is especially useful to see what files an updater or installer placed on your Mac!

IMPROVED! MailCleaner 
You now have the ability to toss all your email attachments without having to erase the email! Works with Apple Mail program, Eudora, and Microsoft® Entourage.

IMPROVED! QuickCompare
Locate all your duplicated files and folders on your Macintosh, and easily and graphiaclly compare them with QuickCompare™ – you will never make a mistake when you throw files out with Spring Cleaning's handy restore feature.

What I Say

Hey, give ‘em a chance, right? There are no less than 25 utilities since the last time we reviewed Spring Cleaning back in 2004. We gave that version (6.1) good grades. This time, not so good. Why?

Each app (similar) can be found in other places for less money. And in most cases, they work faster without hindering Mac OS X.

The smart thing to do is go into the Help Menu and see what all the various utilities do for a living after downloading a copy.

What the heck are “Universal Executables? Without asking, Spring Cleaning began identifying their location using the “Universal Slimmer”. It removes non-PPC code if the box you are running is not a MacTel box and vice versa. And I reviewed this on an iMac G5.

Look, I tried using this package, but it ran slow, and hung on me when trying to run the apps. I don’t think I have that much on my hard drive. I don’t like having a program take over my machine or do stuff without asking first.

I also don’t like a program that shows you all the duplicate files and then doesn’t offer which ones should be removed. Heaven help you if you select “All”!

I’ve paid for earlier Spring Cleaning versions, but somehow the complexity and quantity is taking over quality. No program should take forever and then not deliver as promised. Sorry,
I suggest waiting for the next rev. And it has been a whole year and Smith Micro has not updated Spring Cleaning 8 with all its issues? Riiiiggghhhttt….

A few freeware apps accomplish the same thing in less time. Really!

You might want to peruse the comments posted from Kirk McElhearn’s review in MacWorld from a year ago shown in the link above.

I did what Allume suggested on their website; I “dumped the junk” by reinstalling the program and going to the Uninstall function, which took no time at all to remove everything. I wished the rest of the program performed as well.