Onyx Mac Os Catalina

Posted on 17-08-2021 by admin

Sometimes, the default way that my Mac handles files is frustrating. Shuffling through multiple levels of Finder can be repetitive and exhausting. Sometimes, even straightforward tasks—like deleting files by dragging them to the trash—aren’t as simple as they might seem.

Put the macOS Catalina installer on an external USB thumb drive or hard drive and use it to install the operating system on a Mac. Just make sure to download the right version for your Mac because there’s a specific version of OnyX for each major version of the operating system. The correct version for macOS 10.15 Catalina is OnyX 3.7.2, while the users of macOS 10.14 Mojave should download OnyX 3.6.8. Completely free and supported by donations. OnyX is a powerful freeware utility for OS X that provides maintenance and customization options for your Mac. In this screencast, we take a tour of OnyX.

I know I’m not alone in feeling this way: there’s a whole range of secondary apps that address exactly this issue. Some are pretty simple and some are more complex, but they all pose the same question: Does your Mac work the way it should right out of the box?

Features of OnyX for Mac

I decided to try OnyX, a Mac cleaning utility and disk manager that helps you supervise and organize your disk. A little disclaimer before we get started: OnyX is NOT for beginners. It doesn’t make anything simple, fun, or pretty. Instead, it delivers a set of powerful, professional tools for gaining complete control of your Mac.

Here’s what it has to offer:

Maintenance: This tab contains a checklist of the maintenance tasks that Onyx can perform on your Mac with a single click. These are broken into three categories: rebuilding, cleaning, and miscellaneous. All you need to do is check the boxes next to the tasks that you want to perform. Each task in the maintenance section is designed to leave you with a Mac that runs more smoothly and efficiently.
Utilities: These are the most technical operations the application can perform. I’ll confess that I’m not exactly sure what many of the tabs in this section are for, but I did find the Applications tool very useful. This feature collects a number of useful but usually hidden features on your Mac in one place, including the Storage Management, Network Utility, and Wireless Diagnostics apps. Although these are usually buried deep in System Preferences, it’s nice to have them on hand.
Files: This feature gives you a high level of control over individual disks and files. You can change whether a disk is visible in Finder, assign it a unique Checksum label, or delete any exact duplicates or AppleDoubles. This feature also lets you delete files permanently (don’t worry—it has a triple-pass Secure Delete option to prevent any mistakes).
Parameters: This section offers dozens of options for changing the way your Mac operates. From general choices about display speeds and graphic effects to customization options for Finder and the Dock, it lets you fine-tune all the parts of your computer that you thought were stuck that way for good.

Some of OnyX’s tasks—especially those under the Utility and Maintenance tabs—can take a long time to complete, depending on the size and contents of your drive. Make sure that you don’t start one of these intensive tasks without having a couple of hours of computer downtime available.

What makes OnyX unique?

OnyX is unlike any other disk manager I’ve used. It doesn’t simply meet the user halfway; instead, it demands a high level of input and proficiency. Here’s what I noticed:

No Frills: OnyX isn’t very concerned with looks. Its interface is a series of tabs and checklists with only minor hierarchical organization. This look might require a bit of expertise on part of a user.
Power: OnyX makes changes at a very deep level, allowing you to fundamentally alter the way your computer works. By addressing the parameters and rules behind the basic building blocks of your disk, it gives you an extremely high level of control, provided you know what to do with it.

One place the app is lacking is in automated features. A great deal of foresight and careful calibration are required to automate some necessary processes (like malware detection and other maintenance tasks), and even then, you might not catch everything you meant to. If you don’t have spare time to figure out all the settings, you may try more user-friendly solutions. For example, CleanMyMac X by MacPaw (love it or hate it) has automated cleanup tools and pretty impressive design.
Here’s what I mean:

If you like to play around with this app, download its free version here.

Is OnyX safe?

A disk manager can make a lot of changes to the deep structure of your Mac. It’s always a good idea to do your research and make sure that you trust the one you’re using. Look for an app with a long history of updates and a developer that’s been around for a while—that way, your computer is more likely to be in safe hands. OnyX was first released on Mac OS Jaguar in 2002, so it’s had some time to work out any kinks.

Another way to ensure that you won’t harm your computer is to use the version of OnyX that matches your current operating system. If you haven’t upgraded to Catalina yet, Titanium software (OnyX’s developer) has every past version of the app available for download on their website.

In inexperienced hands, a powerful tool like OnyX can do a lot of accidental damage. Unlike other disk analyzers, which often make suggestions or mark certain files as off-limits for deletion, OnyX’s commitment to control means that a casual user might end up deleting something important or changing settings to the point that their Mac becomes unusable. It’s important that if you plan on using a technically sophisticated tool like OnyX, you have the technical skills to use it safely.

If you’re worried about accidentally deleting important files, consider CleanMyMac X. Its Smart Scan feature helps you make informed decisions about what you can safely toss and what you shouldn’t mess with. It also gives you personalized cleanup tips based on how you use your Mac. Download the trial version here.

OnyX Review: The verdict

As I mentioned before, OnyX is a powerful Mac optimization utility. In the right hands, it’s got the power and flexibility to deliver great results. It doesn’t require much space and is incredibly stable. But if you’d like to go beyond just cleaning and tune your Mac in more ways, check out these 5 Onyx alternatives — hope you’ll pick the right tool for your needs.

The reasons for purchasing cleaning software are multiple.

People who were using Macs for a long time remember the times when their computers didn’t work correctly in some cases, and they want to run maintenance scripts designed to fix those flaws.

People who don’t have enough space on their drives are looking for ways to clean unnecessary junk and claim the space it took. When there is a demand, there is a supply.

There is a great number of cleaning apps, both free andpaid. Among them, OnyX from Titan Software has the longest history (started in2003) and a very high reputation.

OnyX is a freeware utility for macOS developed by French software developer Joël Barrière. Users use the tool for maintenance and optimization and as a central control panel for configuration.

How to Install OnyX

On its main page, the Titan Software, the maker of OnyX and Deeper apps, warns users to download app versions for specific OS versions.

While most other apps usually forward compatible, the developer chose a different approach. Every time Apple comes with a new version of macOS (former OS/X), the developer releases a new version of their apps.

So, the first thing you need to know is the OS you arerunning on your computer. The easiest way to do is the following:

Click on Apple icon in the menu bar (top left corner of the screen)
In the drop-down menu click About This Mac menu option
The first line in the pop-up screen is the name of the current OS.
Now, when you know which OS is on the computer, go to the official site. Find the version of the app for your operating system and download it.

Note:only download the app from the french web site. There were cases when hackers infected the software with malware (see below) and placed it on other Mac software download sites.

Find the OnyX dmg file in the Downloads folder with the Finder and double click on the file.

Now, all you need to do is to drag the app to theApplications folder.

Like all other cleaning apps, OnyX requires Full Access tothe disk. Follow the instructions provided by the app and give access. Thisstep is safe.

OnyX Features

The app consists of four main groups. Let’s review each one.

Maintenance

The Maintenance group consists of several subgroups oftasks. Most of the tasks aimed to clean various things on Macs.

Verifying subgroup

The task in this subgroup can verify the structure of thefile system. Honestly, if you are having issues and suspect the problems withthe drive integrity, I’d suggest using the First Aid option in the built-inDisk Utility app.

It is also possible to delete local Time Machine snapshotsfrom this view, but I don’t see a good reason for it. macOS maintains snapshotswithout any problems.

Rebuilding subgroup

The LaunchServices rebuilding task is useful when the user installed and deleted a lot of apps. When the app gets deleted incorrectly (by moving to Trash), the file association still remains.

If you run this task, then all files will lose their associations with apps. So, the next time you double click on .docx file, the system will ask which app you want to use by default. And it will keep asking until all file extensions have corresponding default apps associated.

How useful this feature? I am not sure. If you have files associated with deleted apps, you can always change association in the Finder.

Spotlight index rebuilding may be useful when you often cannot find files on the disk. Once in a while, the Spotlight Search index can get out of sync, and in this case, it needs to be rebuilt. However, I have never needed to do it on any of my five Macs at home.

Rebuilding mailboxes in the Mail app can be useful if you are a Mail power user. If you are using the Mail app extensively, and you noticed that Mail is taking a lot of space and it became slower than rebuilding mailboxes is a good solution.

However, it is better to go directly to the Mail app, and in the menu, choose Mailbox -> Rebuild menu option. The result will be the same.

Rebuilding disk positions on the desktop is a funny option.It resets the disk positions from the Mac memory. I don’t know why anyone wouldneed this.

And finally, it is possible to rebuild dyld’s and XPS cache.If you don’t know what they mean and when they should be rebuilt, then don’trun them. I don’t.

Cleaning subgroup

This is probably the most sought after feature. It allowscleaning some junk from the disk and freeing some space. There are checkboxesto enable when cleaning System, Applications, Internet, and Log Messages. Thereis also the Options tab where one can further fine-tune and select which filegroups could be cleaned.

Generally, cache and log files are safe to delete. When the cache is deleted, the system may experience a temporary slowness while the new cache gets created.

How useful is the cache cleaning? As I mentioned, the cache will be recreated anyway, and in most cases, the space recovered after cleaning will be reclaimed by the new cache. So, in the grand scheme, the cleaning cache is useless.

The only time it makes sense when applications have trouble clearing their caches. So, I think cleaning it twice a year is more than enough.

Misc. options subgroup

This subgroup includes tasks that do not belong to subgroupsdescribed previously.

Maintenance scripts include daily, weekly, and monthly jobs that can also be accessed from the Utilities->Scripts section. There were times when macOS was periodically failing to run them, causing the logs to grow large and take too much space.

Those issues were fixed a long time ago, and if your Mac has the latest OS version running, then do not worry about running them manually.

Junk items task will clear files left from some malware and potentially unwanted applications. It’s interesting that OnyX still categorizes Mac Keeper as PUP (potentially unwanted application) similar to some other antivirus apps. However, keep in mind that OnyX is not an antimalware program.

Cleaning Trash may not be a much-needed function. The only time this function is useful when emptying Trash cannot be done from the Finder because of system privileges.

In this case, OnyX could be a real help. It performs a secure delete (overwrites file contents three times, so the file cannot be restored later).

Deleting Fonts cache and Recent items will not provide anymeaningful space increase on the disk.

Utilities

The Utilities group provides easy access to severalfunctions on Mac in one place.

Just like its counterpart in the Maintenance group, the File System check task in Utilities will verify the structure of the file system after locking the entire drive.

During the process, you will not be able to do anything for a long time. So, be careful when invoking this function.

In the Time Machine subgroup, one can delete localsnapshots. However, I have doubts about the usefulness of doing so, since localsnapshots should automatically be dropped after 24 hours.

Manuals subgroup contains a list of UNIX commands with their descriptions. Those descriptions can be obtained when running commands with “–help” attribute in the Terminal.

The Applications subgroup provides shortcuts to some sectionin System Preferences.

Files

Use functions in the Files group to run various operationson files, folders, or disks.

Visibility subgroup

By default, macOS hides system files and folders on the disk. Usually, they have a dot as the first character in their names. In order to show/hide hidden files, use Command + Shift + dot (.) key combination.

To use this feature and hide the file, all you need to do is to change the file name and add a dot. For instance, when changing “NewFile.txt” to “.NewFile.txt” macOS will warn that the file will become hidden.

The Visibility subgroup does what I just described from UI.

Secure deleting

OnyX provides ways to delete files, folders, and Trash securely. When a user deletes a file, the contents of the files remain on the disk. Very often, the file can be recovered by using special tools.

In case of very sensitive information, use Erasing or Trash subgroups and use the Secure Delete option. In this case, the app will overwrite the disk sectors with random data three times to prevent the data from being recovered.

Other subgroups

Other subgroups in the Files group are very niche andaddress some rare problems. Read more about them in the documentation, but I amnot sure if 99% of users would ever need them.

Parameters

The Parameters group is designed to be all in oneconfiguration panel. For instance, from here, users can change:

The default number of Recent items from 10 to another number
Saving screenshots from PNG to another format, e.g., JPEG
Remove Restart and Shut Down menus from the Apple menu bar
Change the hover effect on Dock icons
Set the lock screen message

While it may be fun to customize the way Mac operates, it ispossible to mess up the system with modifications completely. Fortunately,there is the Restore Defaults button, which supposed to rollback all parameterchanges.

Info

And finally, there is the Info group, which provides usefulinformation about Mac hardware and software.

How to Use OnyX For Mac

The first function I used with OnyX was supposed to make the least impact on my Mac. I wanted to clear Recent Items.

In the Maintenance tab, I unchecked all boxes except Misc. options -> Recent items.

Then I clicked on Run Tasks.

OnyX displayed to warnings: The computer needs to restart,and OnyX will quit all applications.

In both cases, I hit the Continue button.

The app quickly ran the script and rebooted my Mac. However, my laptop didn’t start. Instead, I’ve got dreaded Folder with Question Mark on the screen.

Fortunately, I knew how to solve the issue.

I rebooted my Mac again and held the Option key, and thenclicked on my Machintosh drive to start.

So, if you wonder how to use OnyX, let me state two rulesyou need to follow:

Before making any changes, ALWAYS take a Time Machine backup. OnyX is a very powerful app that can do a lot of damage if used incorrectly. It’s a low-level tool, and it’s like a “rope long enough to shoot yourself in the foot.”
Read the help about the function before invoking it.

Is OnyX for Mac Safe?

There are two parts to answer this question.

Is OnyX malware or not?
Is using OnyX can destroy the system?

The answer to the first question is yes; OnyX is safe to download and install. However, download from the official site only: https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/OnyX.html.

Never download software from sites such as MacUpdate, which often bundle Mac software with Adware. And sometimes, it may get even worse.

According to Malwarebytes, the OnyX download media from MacUpdate was bundled with malware. This malware turned Apple computers to bitcoin miner, so instead of doing what you want your computer would be busy with mining bitcoins for someone which resulted in the computer being unusable for the owner.

The answer to the second question is it depends. OnyX app comes with a lot of options that could completely destroy the macOS.

In the hands of someone who doesn’t know UNIX on the expert level, the tool is very dangerous. And in most cases, the novice users may have to reinstall the OS in order to go back to the normal state.

OnyX vs. CleanMyMac

Comparing OnyX and CleanMyMac is like comparing apples and oranges. The apps provide mostly different functionality.

The only intersection is the Cleaning part. Both apps allow for cleaning fonts, caches, and logs.

In this area, CleanMyMac X does a better job by displaying more granular information without overwhelming users with low-level information. Also, explanations in CleanMyMac X when to invoke certain tasks are much clear compared to OnyX.

Bottom line:If you are looking for cleaning software, go with CleanMyMac. Users with expert knowledge of macOS would be better with OnyX.

How to Uninstall OnyX correctly

Do not remove OnyX by moving the app to Trash. When the app starts, it creates a number of files in various folders, which will stay there forever in this case.

Onyx For Mac Os Catalina

If you have CleanMyMac X, then use it to uninstall OnyX. Otherwise, download the AppCleaner and use it to delete any app on Mac.