Is there a guide on how to clean up a MacBook?

[cbayer]

I am having a lot of problems and I am thinking it has to do with conflicting programs.

Is there a way that I can go through my applications, etc. and remove the ones that are obsolete or that I never, ever use?

Many of them have names that I don't recognize.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[guyton]

1. not that I know of ...

Any application in /Applications that you don't recognize, you probably don't need. My favorite technique for potentially unneeded applications is to select it and right-click to 'compress' it, then delete the original application. This removes it from being available for auto-launch (e.g. if you click on a data file that uses that application), and still leaves the "<application>.zip" file around in case you find you do need it (a double-click on the .zip file will expand it).

It might help to mention just what kind of problems you're having ... there's a lot of different things that can go wrong with a computer (even a Mac). Old 3rd party software messing things up, running low on disk space, the hard drive can start to fail, fans can fail (e.g. overheating), problems with your ISP, the list isn't short :-)

[cbayer]

2. Thank you! I went through and compressed a bunch of applications.

So far, no trouble and everything is definitely running faster!

Also, sent you an email.

:pals: