Review: Magican – The Powerful Mac Maintenance App Learns a New Trick!

Review: Magican – The Powerful Mac Maintenance App Learns a New Trick!

We reviewed an earlier version of Magican last year, in December. At that point, Magican was still getting its feet wet adapting to the mainstream. Per the developer’s request, we take another look at the recent software updates and, honestly, borrow a fair bit of information from our original post. It may seem like cheating, but as far as I can tell, the biggest difference in the two versions is the addition of an Optimizer section.

Magican Cleaner

Design and Layout

The first window to open after downloading and installing the package is a small systems monitor, which displays on the desktop. The user controls the view to either RAM or CPU speeds and a smaller window displays network connectivity, CPU/GPU temperatures, or also the RAM/CPU speeds-yes, again. In addition to the small window controllers, a Magican menu bar icon is placed without asking user permission. This really tweaks me. Any program that adds menu bar icons should also offer a way to delete or remove the menu bar control. Also noted, the little windows can be collapsed into the menu bar and show selected information in real time.

Magican Widget

The actual Magican app window utilizes a familiar navigation bar to the left, with the real action to the right – similar to iTunes, iPhoto, etc. Navigation through the app is fairly seamless and the far right navigation bar is now more useful. Previously, the far right bar was used to promote the dev team’s Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube channels. However, in a fortunate turn of events, the bar is now used to quick scan your computer, view total deleted data, and track previous quick scans. While I prefer this to social media advertising, it appears the quick scan counter does not work, as I have quick scanned my computer and it does not register that scan. In fact, I deleted 2.8GBs of information but the counter is still not registering.

There is still a “Software” and “Toolbox” section providing the user with a list of suggested applications. The software section suggests app store downloads, both free and paid, and I cannot determine how these suggestions are made…nor do I care for that matter. This is a cleaner app and system monitor. I do not need it suggesting I download Chess Deluxe. I am a big fan of the Uninstall section, which shows applications on your Mac that are rarely used, giving last-opened information, the size, and an uninstall button.

Function

In addition to the aforementioned functions, the heart of Magican is the “Quick Scan” or “Quick Clean,” which are located on the main page of the app. This scan will check for user defined categories, including: files; loges an caches; language sets; browser caches; binaries; and leftovers. Each category can be toggled individually and findings from each are searchable. Running the scan found results in all selected categories. To see everything in action, find the developer videos on YouTube.

The Optimizer is a new function with three options. The first, helps change default system settings attached to apps. For example, change the default web browser or mail client. Second, start-up management lists auto launch items and daemons. Third, system parameters are modifiable, such as finder and dock preferences.

Magican Optimizer

Overall, after finding and deleting 2.8GBs of date on my 2008 MacBook Pro, it does not appear to run or operate any more quickly. The RAM purge was able to reduce my used RAM from ~70% to ~62%, but shows no signs of actual improvement. I image reducing useless files has a positive impact on performance somewhere. However, after using my MacBook for 5 years…. the fact that Magican only found 2.8GBs of useless files is either (A) good because my Mac prevented lots of useless files or (B) there are still many gummed up files still floating around and the application cannot find them.

Caution

I will again leave the readers with a small warning. Magican is freeware, readily available for download across the internet. As this developer chose not to list its application on the Mac App Store, I am very leery about my personal computer’s safety. In a controlled Apple ecosystem, the engineers behind the Mac App Store approval process ensure apps meet certain standards. By circumventing these processes, I cannot guarantee the app behaves in accordance with Apple standards; consequently, the files the scanner finds, may or may not be important system files.

My scan revealed many “unnecessary files,” but I was hesitant before actually deleting them. More interesting is the Duplicate Files search. Looking through the log, I noticed many picture files that appear on my HDD twice. After sampling some of the files, I noticed they were files I intentionally placed in separate folders. Had I simply trashed all of the scanned findings, I may have deleted files I actually use.

Another cause for alarm is the “awards” section of the MagicanSoft.com website. For example, the developers list Magican as receiving the Softpedia “100% Clean” award. To the casual observer that seems like a good thing… “well, Magican is a registry cleaner and system monitor….it received a 100% clean award? That must mean it is great!” …however, what it really means, is that Softpedia scanned the actual install .pkg / .exe file and found the program to be free from malware – NOT that the program will clean 100% of your system.

Conclusion [rating: 3/5]

Based on my interactions with Magican (Free, .pkg download), the app behaves as advertised. It found a long list of registry, cache, and binary logs it deemed excess information. However, since converting to Mac, I have taken an if-it’s-not-broke-don’t-fix-it approach to computing. Blindly deleting a long list of files with an app that is not approved by the Mac App Store is concerning.

The app increased in rating from last time because the user interface is less of a self-promotion and displays more workable space. The menu bar icon now functions properly, but still installs itself automatically. If the dev team submitted this for official Mac App Store publication, it would achieve a much higher rating.

Pros:

  • Free
  • RAM release button clears used memory
  • Monitor system temperature
  • Uninstall apps from one location

Cons:

  • Un-regulated freeware is not officially approved by Apple
  • May delete usable and necessary files
  • Includes worthless app suggestion tab