First fresh OS X installation - How to?

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Anony-mousse

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So I think it is time for me to set up my mac from scratch. I am not happy with all the traces the many installations left somewhere and it seems something slowing down my MBP. To make a long story short, I wanna make a clean install of OS X. How to go about it not to lose anything?

I just made a time machine backup, is that all I need? Will it ask me during the installation if I want to recover files from a time machine backup? Will it only recover certain files or will I end up with all the same system trash again?

Should I also make clean installations of software like Office for Mac or can this be recovered as well?

And what about the system software updates? Are they stored somewhere or will I have to download everything again?
 
Transfer activations, if applicable. Download again for Software Updates unless you expressly told it to store, I am afraid.
 
Before you do that, there are two things you can try that can significantly improve matters.

1. Delete the content if ~/Library/Caches/ - this typically grows quite large, big enough to offset any benefit that the various caches might have.

2. Create a new account, and log in under that account. See how this runs. More likely than not, your machine will feel brand new. If it does, simply start with a fresh account.

The user migration tool, great that it is, unfortunately brings over all the accumulated crud too.
 
Thanks, I will try a new account to see if it is faster. Maybe I'm just too spoilt with the Mac speed.
 
My user profile have been migrated from machine to machine, staring with my old G4 Mac Mini, for about five years now. A month or so ago, I was unable to log in - I just got a black screen. So I logged in as a different user (I have an admin one just in case), and wiped the contents of ~/Library/Cache on my regular profile. Actually, I made a Cache_old/ directory and moved the contents, just in case. It was 7 or 8GB, and aside from fixing the issue, my login time dropped from almost two minutes to about 20 seconds.
 
Another easy way is to go into the Safari Web browser and under the Safari menu you 'empty cache'. This will empty the cache and speed up your mac.









- Seriously though this is the argument I once had with one of our clients on how to speed up my mac...
 
I find this solution for me works best. I ALWAYS partition my harddrive in two. First partition 120GB for OSX and APPS only. 2nd partition as my HOME drive. This way if i need to reinstall OSX i dont have to backup anything first.
 
Oh and I forgot to mention that I took my DVD Writer out and installed another 750GB HDD in its place for WORK only. Because I do Graphic Design, video editing and stuff this is great that I have all my work on a separate drive. Easier for backups as well with Super Duper. I have a old external 40GB 2.5" usb drive that is partitioned in 3 - 1st = OSX install DVD, 2nd OSX Server Install DVD, 3rd = All OSX updates. I also have a slimline LG external DVD writer incase I need to use a DVD
 
I have cleaned my Mac with CleanMyMac, my cached folder is only 150mb. I have created a new account, everything opens instantly, but so does my normal account now. To be honest I think I'm overreacting. Perhaps I should work on Windows again for a while.

iTunes takes about 2-3 seconds to open with 2000 items. Mail opens instantly. I have the 2.53GHz i5 with 8GB ram. I think it works as supposed to.

I do have 2 partitions as well. I never share my stuff with the system partition.
 
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