Advanced Mac Cleaner Review

Advanced Mac Cleaner is a free software utility that claims to be able to clean up your Mac from junk, old files, and duplicate items. This review will give you a good overview as well as the pros and cons of this software so you can make an informed decision about whether or not it's worth downloading and using on your Apple computer.

If you are looking for the TL;DR version of this article: no, Advanced Mac Cleaner is not a legitimate software and it won't do anything positive for your computer with potential risks associated with the application. If you have it installed, I'd recommend getting rid of it manually or with a legit app like CleanMyMac X.

Is Advanced Mac Cleaner Legit?

A common question is whether Advanced Mac Cleaner is a legitimate software or not. One of the biggest red flags when it comes to the validity of Advanced Mac Cleaner is how they acquire their customers and their brand awareness.

First off, the app doesn't even have an official website. Googling words associated with the software's name just results in 3rd party articles that tell the truth about this supposed mac cleaner or they talk about how to get rid of the software should you have it installed on your computer. They also have no real reviews out on the web with

The second big red flag about this application is how they acquire their new users. Almost all of the time, those who come across Advanced Mac Cleaner have found it via a warning pop up on a website that is telling them their computer is infected, vulnerable to infection, or has outdated software components such as Java.

This type of promotion is sleazy and 99% of the time a scam. They will show these pop ups to anyone who visits the pages or sites that are serving them, sometimes even on a PC or mobile phone despite the software only being for the Mac operating system.

Is Advanced Mac Cleaner A Virus?

Whether or not Advanced Mac Cleaner is actually a virus or malware that is going to infect your Apple computer and put your data at risk is still not 100% proven.

Chances are, it may be sharing your data and compromising your information although I haven't seen any confirmed cases of this besides anonymous forum posts regarding this.

Regardless of this, it not a legitimate tool that is going to help do what it promises which is to clean and optimize your Mac computer from junk files and unnecessary caches so it isn't something you want to keep installed.

What Advanced Mac Cleaner does is send you false positives that your macOS is infected and that it can help you solve this issue with its internal optimization tools that it boasts to be beneficial to the user.

If anyone from Advanced Mac Cleaner contacts you to purchase an upgraded version or to help you remove the program for a fee, please do not give them any of your financial information as you would be putting it at risk.

Some of you may have already given someone who represents the program your credit card number, Paypal, or banking information. In this case, I'd recommend contacting the financial institution to try to get a refund and help protect your accounts from future wrongdoing.

Also keep in mind, while Advanced Mac Cleaner is the most commonly used name, we've seen others refer to this fraudulent app as Cleaner Advanced Mac or Mac Cleaner Advanced.

How To Remove Advanced Mac Cleaner Pop Up?

There are two potential cleanup options when it comes to the process to remove Advanced Mac Cleaner from your system.

Option #1: The Easiest Way To Uninstall Advanced Mac Cleaner

While Advanced Mac Cleaner is a fraudulent app, there are Mac cleaners on the market that do work well and help those less tech-savvy keep their Macs running smoothly.

One solution that we can recommend the most and stand behind is called CleanMyMac X. This app is created by a well-known Mac app developer called MacPaw who offers many useful tools that solve different purposes.

Beyond the Mac cleaning potential that CleanMyMac X provides, there are built-in security features that let the application clean up any dangerous software from your system. It features a dedicated malware scanner as well as an uninstaller utility that will completely remove the program in just a few clicks.

In terms of pricing, CleanMyMac X has a free version as a trial and you can utilize the scan function. However, you won't be able to act on the scan and let CleanMyMac X do the cleaning for you unless you pay for the full version which retails for $39.95/year for a single license subscription. They do have a 30-day money back guarantee which helps give peace of mind.

Fortunately, there is a workaround that is free and legal to get access to the full version of CleanMyMac X temporarily. MacPaw offers a subscription service called Setapp which provides access to all of their apps like CleanMyMac X as well as other popular Mac applications like AdGuard, Luminar, Bartender, and many more.

By signing up for this free trial version of Setapp, you'll be able to download the full, unrestricted CleanMyMac X for 7 days. From there you'll be able to utilize the Malware Scanner feature to remove Advanced Mac Cleaner in addition to another potentially unwanted program or items.

It can also be used to provide temporary cleanups or duplicate files to give your system a performance boost. You don't have to pay once the trial is over, but if you were considering investing in a Mac cleaner then CleanMyMac X is the one we think is worth the money and the cleaning potential that it provides for the price.

Option #2: The Harder Way – Manually Removing The MacOS Files & Data

For those of you who don't want to do it the easy way or don't feel comfortable downloading another Mac cleaner (though this one is actually legit) to your system, there is a manual route that will require some tech skills to pull off.

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Step 1:

Triple-click the line below (file address) to select it:

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.pcv.hlpramc.plist

Right-click or control-click the highlighted text and choose

Services ▹ Show in Finder (may alternatively say Reveal for some MacOS versions) from the menu.

If Advanced Mac Cleaner is present on your system, a folder should open with a file selected. Move this pre-selected file to the Trash. Log out or restart the computer.

If you don't see this contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

In the Finder, select ‘Go ▹ Go to Folder…' from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V and then press return.

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Step 2

Move the following item to the Trash as you did in the previous step:

/Library/Application Support/amc

For this step, it may ask you for an administrator login password. There's no need to log out of our account after taking this step.

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Step 3

Similar to Steps 1 & 2, move this file to the Trash:

~/Library/AdvancedMacCleaner

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Step 4

Open your Applications folder and drag the app named “Advanced Mac Cleaner” to the Trash. Empty the Trash.

At this point, the bogus Advanced Mac Cleaner tool should be removed from your system and you are free from the associated risks.

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Final Verdict

It's always important to be aware of all the risks and benefits when downloading a free software utility. Once again, Advanced Mac Cleaner is not a legitimate application that does anything beneficial for its users.

If you have it installed, I recommend getting rid of it manually or with an app like CleanMyMac X. This way you can keep your computer secure as well as eliminate any junk files that are taking up space on your hard drive.