For instance, in the screenshot above, you can see a number of system.log files. The first onesystem.logis the current file, but the others, with the.bz2 suffix, are archived files.

Its spring again, and with the new season comes the age-old ritual of cleaning out things you ignored for most of the year.

Far be it from me to suggest that you clean out your basement, garage, or attic, but I would be remiss if I didnt recommend you take a closer look at the crusty corners of your Mac.

Last year, Chris Breen shared valuable Tips for a tidier Mac all of which are worth revisiting.

But I also want to draw your attention to a half-dozen digital dust bunnies that you might not have considered.

If you use iChat, you can have the program store logs of your chats.

Go to iChat - Preferences, click on Messages, select Save Chat Transcripts To, and then choose a folder.) By default, the program saves transcripts in a folder called iChats in your Documents folder, but you can choose a different location to store these files.

With this preference set, iChat saves a log file of every chat.

This is a great idea (and especially helpful at work) if you often need to refresh your memory about a conversation.

But if you send images inline during chats, these files may take up a lot of space.

If you look inside the iChats folder, youll see that the files are organized by date.

While you may want to save recent chat logs, you may have months of files you can trash, saving a lot of disk space.

Many programs offer automatic backups, and store copies of files in a selected folder, just as iChat saves chat logs.

Two programs I use oftenBare Bones Softwares BBEdit and The Omni Groups OmniFocus do this.

Some applications, such as OmniFocus, let you choose the location for the backups; others, like BBEdit, dont.

BBEdit stores its backups in a BBEdit Backups folder in my Documents folder; I have OmniFocus store its backups in my Documents folder as well.

If you use any application that saves backups, you may find that it has tucked away several gigabytes of duplicate files, depending on how the program saves them.

BBEdit saves a new backup every time you save a file.) Deleting these backup files can save space, and make searching via OS Xs Spotlight much easier.

When you receive attachments to e-mail messages in Apples Mail, the files are stored with your messages at first.

But if you double-click an attachment to view it, or if you use QuickLook to glance at it, Mail stores a copy in your youruserfolder LibraryMail Downloads folder.

You may have dozens of files here occupying a huge amount of space.

If you still have the original messages, the attachments are part of those messages.

If not, you may have already saved the attachments to your hard disk.

Your Mac stores lots of log files, most of which you never need to review.

Open the Console application (in ApplicationsUtilities), to see a list in the Console Messages window sidebar.

You can delete many of these files without affecting your Mac, and you can save significant space, since some of these files can be quite large.

For instance, in the screenshot above, you can see a number of system.log files.

The first onesystem.logis the current file, but the others, with the.bz2 suffix, are archived files.

Cleaner For 10.7 5 Onyx Mac