[kevs]

Just reading article that says apps like Cocktail (which I have) don't delete all the caches you have, and hence you should, as a general maintenance, go to HD and delete manually. Is this true? And do you folks hassle it? thanks!
10.4.2

[CharlesS]

Who cares? You don't need to delete caches if you aren't experiencing a problem.

[CharlesS]

edit: deleting double posts, however, would have certain advantages

[alphasubzero949]

Cocktail depends on the hype of "maintenance" in order to drive sales of his "app."

Caches do not need to be deleted unless there is a problem with an app or the system's behavior.

They're located in ~/Library/Caches and /Library/Caches.

You don't even need an app to delete them; you can DIY.

Perhaps you should read this about Cocktail if it makes things more comforting to know what that app is really doing.

[rickey939]

I don't hassle with it at all.

[msuper69]

I've never deleted any caches, rarely repair permissions and only use repair disk every once in a great while (If I have to do an ungraceful shutdown-very, very rare).

Either I'm lucky or extremely skillful in the use of OS X. Every single update I've done (all via Software Update) has always worked. That even goes back as far as OS 8.1.

[alphasubzero949]

Originally Posted by msuper69

I've never deleted any caches, rarely repair permissions and only use repair disk every once in a great while (If I have to do an ungraceful shutdown-very, very rare).

Either I'm lucky or extremely skillful in the use of OS X. Every single update I've done (all via Software Update) has always worked. That even goes back as far as OS 8.1.

You shouldn't have to. As I wised up in learning more about how OS X works beneath the surface, I came to realize that all of these "maintenance" tasks do not make OS X any faster. The developers who wrap simple Applescripts and echo shell commands into apps and then turn around and charge you for spoonfeeding your BSD subsystem back to you rely on your ignorance and/or unfamiliarity with OS X's underpinnings.

By design, OS X automatically updates prebindings when you open applications. You don't need to "optimize" anything manually because the system already does it for you.

Permissions repair is still necessary due to crappy installers (such as Macromedia's Flash Player installer). The "secret" to permissions repair is ensuring that the privileges in the Applications folder is set to root:admin 775. Now if only Apple can ditch Disk Utility's reliance on /Library/Receipts for determining permissions...

[osxrules]

I thought Cocktail did remove all the caches. Where is the article you were reading?

I have used Cocktail a few times to delete the caches because I used SystemOptimizerX. This app changed the permissions on my cache folder so that it messed up and even after resetting the permissions, the cache files were bad so I had to remove them.

As others have said though, removing caches isn't so much regular maintenance as troubleshooting.

[Randman]

Sorry but deactivating the cache in Safari speeds it up considerably. As far as other caches, if you have plenty of room, leave it. But having a couple of GB or more of caches on a laptop does eat into space. And to keep the the 10%/double ram rule going, emptying caches does save needed space.

[kevs]

it was one of the two major Mac mags can't remember which one.
thanks for opinions.

Alpha, DIY: We have to do something ourselves? ugh.

Hey, is there free app that will de-activate cache in Safari well? I was using safari enhancer, but it was buggy.

[alphasubzero949]

Originally Posted by kevs

Alpha, DIY: We have to do something ourselves? ugh.

Hey, is there free app that will de-activate cache in Safari well?

Yeah. It's called the Terminal.

rm -r ~/Library/Caches/Safari/
touch ~/Library/Caches/Safari/

Easily done (assuming you knew to quit Safari first).

[Tsilou B.]

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

Yeah. It's called the Terminal.

rm -r ~/Library/Caches/Safari/
touch ~/Library/Caches/Safari/

Easily done (assuming you knew to quit Safari first).

I would never enter rm -rf together with any slashes in the Terminal. If you type an additional space by accident, e.g.

rm -r ~/Library/ Caches/Safari/

your entire Library folder would be deleted. A space after "~/" and all your files are gone. It's safer to type the rf command as:

cd ~/Library/Caches
rm -r Safari

[Anubis IV]

A simple do-it-yourself method in the Finder is to just:
1) Navigate to ~/Library/Caches/
2) Grab the Safari cache
3) Trash it
4) Launch TextEdit
5) Create a plain text document with nothing in it
6) Save the document
--a) Name it "Safari" with no extension on the name
--b) Make sure that the checkbox about adding .txt extension is unchecked
--c) Save it into the ~/Library/Caches/ directory
7) Quit TextEdit
8) Go to Finder and Get Info on the new Safari document
9) Under General, click the Locked check box so that it is checked
10) I'm just adding this so that I have an even 10 steps

Ta da. You now have a file that Safari can't modify in place of your cache, effectively eliminating your cache.

Now, this little trick is rather useful if you have a broadband connection, but if you're on dial-up, I wouldn't recommend it since it'll lead to longer load times of pages. Personally, I like it since it makes sure that whenever I hit the Refresh button I am ALWAYS getting the newest version of the page. Very useful when you're modifying web pages and want to see what changes in the code do to the page without having to clear the cache.

[alphasubzero949]

Originally Posted by Tsilou B.

I would never enter rm -rf together with any slashes in the Terminal. If you type an additional space by accident, e.g.

rm -r ~/Library/ Caches/Safari/

your entire Library folder would be deleted. A space after "~/" and all your files are gone. It's safer to type the rf command as:

cd ~/Library/Caches
rm -r Safari

Did you fail reading comprehension in grade school? Where do you see the "f" option in the commands I listed? And if you accidentally typed an extra space in your example, tough luck. Better hope you made backups. It's not like you couldn't drag the folder into the Terminal window.

[Tsilou B.]

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

Did you fail reading comprehension in grade school? Where do you see the "f" option in the commands I listed? And if you accidentally typed an extra space in your example, tough luck. Better hope you made backups. It's not like you couldn't drag the folder into the Terminal window.

Oh my god...
I don't know why you take this personally and react like that. Didn't you learn respect and politeness at home and in grade school?

Even if you don't use the "f" option, you can lose many files if you mistype the command.
I said "I would never enter rm -rf together with any slashes". If you are sure that you will never inadvertently enter an extra space without noticing it or you always look for the files in the Finder and drag and drop them to the Terminal, then fine, that's great.
However, I know that these extra spaces could happen to me and that's why I really prefer the cd/rf approach. Besides, most people who usually don't use the Terminal and are not familiar with UNIX shell commands don't realize what can happen if there is just one extra space in the command.

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by Tsilou B.

I know that these extra spaces could happen to me and that's why I really prefer the cd/rf approach.

I'm with you, I typically navigate to the folder I'll be working on/in. The issue of making a mistake is too great. A cavelier " tough luck. Better hope you made backups" isn't the type of re-assuredness that you need. I operate a lot in the terminal mode, use AIX (IBM's Unix flavor) at work and also work on PCs and do a lot of stuff with them via the command shell. I always make sure I'm in the specific directory before I do anyhting.

Edit:
I forgot to reference the OP's subject - I never delete my cache and have not even thought to do so. As for the safarai things, I think its a neat little trick I'll try but overall I'm not dissatisified with safari's performance.

Mike

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Tsilou B.

Oh my god...
I don't know why you take this personally and react like that. Didn't you learn respect and politeness at home and in grade school?

Even if you don't use the "f" option, you can lose many files if you mistype the command.
I said "I would never enter rm -rf together with any slashes". If you are sure that you will never inadvertently enter an extra space without noticing it or you always look for the files in the Finder and drag and drop them to the Terminal, then fine, that's great.
However, I know that these extra spaces could happen to me and that's why I really prefer the cd/rf approach. Besides, most people who usually don't use the Terminal and are not familiar with UNIX shell commands don't realize what can happen if there is just one extra space in the command.

I agree whole-heartedly with this. I always cd to the parent directory and then rm -rf. I don't care how skilled you are (directed at alphasubzero); you're human too, and it's possible for your thumb to slip and hit the space bar (or return key) by accident. I know that I do not to risk deleting my entire home folder, however slight that risk may be. Therefore, I always take about 2 extra seconds and cd to the folder first.

However, in this case, I think it would be even easier just to go in and trash the folder using the Finder, as Anubis suggested.

[alphasubzero949]

JFC. Why does the "f" option keep coming up in this discussion? OF COURSE I KNOW about the possible slip-ups. Why do you think I gave only -r in the command listed several posts up? Guess what? You can still accidentally delete stuff in the GUI too, even after being prompted for your input before it does the deed.

If you want to cd to the directory in question, more power to you.

For the record, I have NEVER accidentally deleted something using the Terminal. That's what backups are for. I've had worse things happen to me than accidentally including an extra space (try TechTool corrupting your HD's directory).

As for my "grade school" comment, if you're that easily offended by my comments on the INTERNET, you have much bigger issues.

I've said enough in this thread.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

JFC. Why does the "f" option keep coming up in this discussion? OF COURSE I KNOW about the possible slip-ups. Why do you think I gave only -r in the command listed several posts up? Guess what? You can still accidentally delete stuff in the GUI too, even after being prompted for your input before it does the deed.

You really need to cool off a bit. It's as if you're taking a simple suggestion of a safer way to do things as a grave personal insult or something. It's not.

I don't think anyone has been harping on the "f" option in here. It's pretty academic in this case since you're going to own most of the files in your home directory, and they're just going to be deleted without prompt, whether the "f" option is there or not.

You can accidentally delete stuff in the GUI, but it's usually harder to do - you have to accidentally put something in the Trash, and then accidentally empty the Trash.

If you want to cd to the directory in question, more power to you.

For the record, I have NEVER accidentally deleted something using the Terminal. That's what backups are for. I've had worse things happen to me than accidentally including an extra space (try TechTool corrupting your HD's directory).

The advice is not solely directed at you - it was posted in this forum for the public benefit. People are recommending the use of certain Terminal commands, and safer alternatives are being posted to follow them up. I prefer the cd/rm way myself, but especially for a newbie user reading this thread who is not used to the Terminal, I would most certainly recommending doing it this way.

As for my "grade school" comment, if you're that easily offended by my comments on the INTERNET, you have much bigger issues.

From my point of view, it's you who's being easily offended in this thread. Sit back, take a deep breath, and relax.

[alphasubzero949]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

You really need to cool off a bit. It's as if you're taking a simple suggestion of a safer way to do things as a grave personal insult or something. It's not.

...

From my point of view, it's you who's being easily offended in this thread. Sit back, take a deep breath, and relax.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

Yeah. It's called the Terminal.

rm -r ~/Library/Caches/Safari/
touch ~/Library/Caches/Safari/

Easily done (assuming you knew to quit Safari first).

Originally Posted by Tsilou B.

I would never enter rm -rf together with any slashes in the Terminal. If you type an additional space by accident, e.g.

rm -r ~/Library/ Caches/Safari/

your entire Library folder would be deleted. A space after "~/" and all your files are gone. It's safer to type the rf command as:

cd ~/Library/Caches
rm -r Safari

Originally Posted by alphasubzero949

Did you fail reading comprehension in grade school? Where do you see the "f" option in the commands I listed? And if you accidentally typed an extra space in your example, tough luck. Better hope you made backups. It's not like you couldn't drag the folder into the Terminal window.

It's quite clear where the emotion and offense are coming from.

After this, he just asked you why you took it so personally. You then launched into another tirade, asking why the "f" option keeps coming up in the discussion, which is really strange because so far, it hasn't yet. The "f" option really has very little to do with this since rm -r will delete the files just the same.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

> The "f" option really has very little to do with this
> since rm -r will delete the files just the same.

And so will typing command-option-E in Safari!
(I empty its cache every time, just before quitting)