Cleaning Up Mac OS X

Besides doing a fresh install, does anyone have any tips for uncluttering Mac OS X? I install and uninstall a fair few apps and find that after a while things start to chug. I was hoping there might be an easy way to clean orphan files floating around the place and get things feeling snappy again.

Go to ~/Library/Preferences/ and sort by modification date. Anything unused in the last X weeks/months can go. Simply start any application once you install. Keep the files around another month in case you start an application and have an unexpected first-launch experience.

Use a tool like Disk Inventory X or DaisyDisk, point it at ~/Library/Application Support and nuke anything with more that X MB (I'd recommend 10) you don't recognize or no longer use.

There is no "100%" solution, and since you keep on installing/trying/uninstalling there's really no point.

Edited to add:

Check the LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons directories within your user library and the /Library, as well as the Accounts preference pane in System Preferences.app for unnecessary Login Items

Use Disk Inventory X (free) or DaisyDisk (non-free but pretty) to look around your whole disk to see where your storage went.

Now we're getting very much into subjective territory:

Read into which directories are excluded by default from Time Machine (you don't see them in the preference pane!), I am pretty sure Logs and Caches are among them. Trash their contents (although I find both rather useful, so YMMV).

Most applications can be moved around directories, so if you suffer from application overload, move your own applications to a different one and remove them from the Dock (preferably one not indexed by your application launcher, i.e. LaunchBar, Quicksilver, etc. if you use such software) and move them out from that "quarantine" once you need them. One month later, delete the "quarantine" directory.

Try out the shareware Hazel. Not for me, but helps with cluttered download folders, I hear.

Install your applications only in ~/Applications (folder within your user directory, need to create it first), except where not possible (iWork and VMware Fusion, and generally everything with an installer comes to mind). This way you can easily carry them over to a different machine without changing /Applications, you cannot mess up access permissions for software accessible to all users and can be sure which ones can be freely trashed, and which ones probably shouldn't.

If you're using Time Machine, it supports restoring only user directories after a fresh install. This goes well with applications in ~/Applications, you might need to reinstall drivers and Installer.app-installed software, though.

TrashMe, it has option Orphan mode to detect unused property file and temp files.

Whatever you do stay away from an App called MacKeeper, its one of the most controversial Apps available for OS X. Its is apparently very difficult to uninstall completely from the system as well.

This article entitled Beware Mackeeper, from Mac Security website The Safe Mac, gives more insight including alternatives you can use for your Mac.

If I were to invest in a product and pay for the privilege, I would use CleanMyMac by MacPaw.

More info regarding this product can be found here.

Otherwise the Free alternatives AppCleaner and AppDelete Lite do an excellent job.

You can try Cocktail as well. It does a pretty good job.