3rd party apps....

[Rhisiart]

I am inclined to purchase 3rd party apps (as long as they are approved by Apple), rather than just rely on Apple programmes. However, I wonder whether I need most of them. For example, I have Microsft Office yet Pages and Numbers do me fine for what I need.

I recently purchased Clean MyMac X. Now I am asking myself was this a wise purchase? Do I need to use its functions to 'clean' my Mac?

I would appreciate the views of other members of this forum.

 

[DeltaMac]

Free "helper" apps? sure... Onyx, TinkerTool, a few others that do a variety of tasks. All known good tools.
Not sure if I would ever pay actual money for that, however.
One exception to that - good disk directory tools, such as DiskWarrior, or Tech Tool Pro. There's a couple of others like that, tools that can perhaps help you avoid spending real money for unneeded drive replacement (or help you verify that repairs are actually needed). Those kind of tools can be worth the money asked.
Other kinds of "clean up" tools, eh, not so much. But, I will sometimes try out those that are free. So: "wise purchase" maintenance tools? Not often.

As far as Microsoft Office - If you have a need for Office - your job requires you to create or edit Word documents, etc, having the actual Microsoft Word app can keep you on your job's "Good list"
If you don't have needs that require actual Office apps, then kind of a waste of your money/time, don't you agree? Or, use whatever is more comfortable for you, and fits your own needs.

 

[Rhisiart]

Free "helper" apps? sure... Onyx, TinkerTool, a few others that do a variety of tasks. All known good tools.
Not sure if I would ever pay actual money for that, however.
One exception to that - good disk directory tools, such as DiskWarrior, or Tech Tool Pro. There's a couple of others like that, tools that can perhaps help you avoid spending real money for unneeded drive replacement (or help you verify that repairs are actually needed). Those kind of tools can be worth the money asked.
Other kinds of "clean up" tools, eh, not so much. But, I will sometimes try out those that are free. So: "wise purchase" maintenance tools? Not often.

As far as Microsoft Office - If you have a need for Office - your job requires you to create or edit Word documents, etc, having the actual Microsoft Word app can keep you on your job's "Good list"
If you don't have needs that require actual Office apps, then kind of a waste of your money/time, don't you agree? Or, use whatever is more comfortable for you, and fits your own needs.

Thanks, DeltaMac. I only have Microsoft Office because it came free when I enrolled on a university course. I have yet to use it! When I create documents or letters in Pages I simply export them as Word files. That seems to work quite well. If I import a .doc file into Pages sometimes a font is not recognised but that rarely bothers me.

I have DiskWarrior by the way but I am told that it doesn't work on SSDs. Following your excellent advice some while back I changed my hard disks for SSDs. Best thing I have ever done.

 

[DeltaMac]

DiskWarrior works fine on SSDs. Not sure how you would have that idea.
DW does NOT repair APFS formatted drives. Typically, those will be SSDs, but could be spinning hard drives, too.
If you have Macs running macOS 10.13.6, or later, then the boot drive will normally be APFS format, making DiskWarrior relatively useless.
I still use DW to scan and fix directories on older, non-APFS, drives.

 

[Rhisiart]

DiskWarrior works fine on SSDs. Not sure how you would have that idea.
DW does NOT repair APFS formatted drives. Typically, those will be SSDs, but could be spinning hard drives, too.
If you have Macs running macOS 10.13.6, or later, then the boot drive will normally be APFS format, making DiskWarrior relatively useless.
I still use DW to scan and fix directories on older, non-APFS, drives.

OK. Got it. All I know is that DiskWarior will not run on both my Mac Mini and Macbook Pro since I changed the hard disks to SSDs.