PrefsOverload 5.3.1 review

PrefsOverload is a full-featured tool for managing the Preferences Folder, which contains your various “Preference Files".

License: Shareware OS: Mac OS X File size: 2608K Developer: Zik Software Buy Now Price: $15.00 Updated: 17 Dec 2005

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PrefsOverload is a full-featured tool for managing the Preferences Folder, which contains your various “Preference Files". Preference Files are those files in which applications store their settings and other information. After System 7, all these files have been enclosed in the "Preferences Folder". Preferences are important files, but sometimes they can turn out to be completely unnecessary.

This can occur, for example, when their mother application doesn't exist--or no longer exists--on your computer. Over time the Preferences Folder will slowly grow and may become filled with files created by trashed demo applications, or applications used for a short time only or not used at all. The trouble is that all these unused or unusable files still continue to take up valuable disk space!

Another problem is that sometimes an application may fail to start-up because it happens to have a Preference File that has become damaged, or "corrupted". In such a case you will need to delete this file, after which the application will create a fresh Preference File and will run as it did before the problem occurred.

PrefsOverload was designed to resolve both problems. It can browse the Preferences Folder, allowing you to detect unnecessary preferences files, thanks to the information it gives you. Or it can display a list of probably unnecessary or damaged Preference Files, allowing you to delete them or to put them into the trash. Also PrefsOverload allows to search for specific Preference Files, by their type/creator or their creation/modification date and so on.

Here are some key features of "PrefsOverload":
Runs on Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X
Accurate scanning, based on mother application, modification date and internal preferences database.
Not only displays if a file is possibly unnecessary, but also displays a rating on the side.
Finds damaged preference files
VERY fast scanning
Drag and drop integration with the Finder
Scans for non-standard Preferences folder, so you can scan Preferences folders of all Mac OS versions installed on your computer and of all MacOS X users, logging in as root user.
Full PDF help included
AppleScript Support.

Limitations:
The demo version shows a boring delay message at startup and doesn't allow you to delete preference files.

What's New:
Fixed a bug that prevented folder exclusion from working correctly
Minor interface changes and improvements.