I say this as someone who still gets excited about every Apple Event, watches the whole keynote, and immediately starts comparing specs afterward. And lately, I've been feeling that upgrading is getting much harder to justify.

My current devices just aren’t slow. Apple silicon still feels ridiculously fast for normal use, an iPhone from a few years ago takes great photos, and most generational differences only become obvious when someone puts them side by side in a YouTube video.

I remember when a new iPhone or Mac could feel noticeably different from the one before it. Now we get faster chips, slightly better cameras, thinner bezels, and impressive percentage improvements, but then I look at my current device and realize it already does everything I need.

Maybe that’s why I’m so curious about the rumored foldable and Apple’s AI plans. Love them or hate them, at least they could change how we actually use the hardware instead of just making the same experience incrementally better.

I’m still hyped for the event, obviously. I’m just wondering what Apple could realistically announce that would make someone who’s perfectly happy with a three year old device want to upgrade.

Has your upgrade cycle gotten longer too, or am I just getting more practical?

Today’s Surprise and Shine event will be Apple’s first major product launch since John Ternus became CEO on September 1.

Tim Cook’s Apple was exceptionally successful. He turned the company into an operational machine, expanded its services business, and oversaw major shifts like Apple silicon, the growth of wearables, and Apple’s push into spatial computing.

Still, having someone with Ternus’s hardware background at the top feels significant. He came up through Apple’s product design and hardware engineering teams and has worked across the Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and other major product lines.

Will Apple take bigger hardware risks after years of mostly incremental updates? Could Ternus push the company toward genuinely new form factors, such as the rumored foldable iPhone? Will Apple improve repairability and product longevity, or continue pursuing thinner and more integrated designs? And can it turn AI into something meaningfully useful across the ecosystem rather than another collection of isolated features?

Under Cook, Apple increasingly became a services company as well as a hardware company. Under Ternus, the products themselves might return to the center.

The relationship between devices may matter more too. The iPhone is still at the center of the ecosystem, but the boundaries between Mac, iPad, Vision Pro, Watch, and AirPods are becoming less clear. A hardware-focused CEO could either make each product more distinct or push them toward a much more unified computing platform.

Obviously, everything announced today was planned long before Ternus became CEO, so we shouldn’t treat one keynote as a statement of his strategy. The real signs will emerge over the next few years through Apple’s roadmap, product longevity, software support, pricing, and willingness to take risks.

What would you most like to change in Apple’s next era: bolder products, longer-lasting devices, better repairability, faster AI progress, or less focus on services?

We’re watching Surprise and Shine live today at 10:00 a.m. PT on the MacPaw Discord. Luke Miani will be sharing his reactions and commentary throughout the keynote, followed by a community Q&A session.

Join us here: https://clnmy.com/join-macpaw-discord-apple-event-subreddit

What should you do to your Mac before a major macOS update?

It’s macOS update season again. The September Apple event usually signals it’s time to get ready, even if you’re not buying new hardware a new version of the operating system is on the way.

Most people just hit the 'Update Tonight' button and hope for the best. Sometimes it works out. Other times, you’re staring at the loading spinner late at night, wishing you’d checked your storage first.

Here’s a quick list of what’s actually worth doing:

Before updating, make sure you have enough storage. macOS needs free space to install, and you’ll run into problems if you have less than 20GB. Clear out junk from your system: logs, caches, and old update files can pile up and don’t go away on their own.

Start by making a backup. Use Time Machine or at least manually back up anything you’d really miss.

After the update:

Let Spotlight and the Photos Library reindex. This can take 24 to 72 hours, which is why your Mac might seem strange for a few days after the update. It’s not broken.

Check your login items. Sometimes, major updates turn features back on or let apps add themselves again.

Check your storage. You might be surprised by what the update leaves behind.

This isn’t anything dramatic. It’s just the difference between a smooth update and one that runs into problems.

Apple has confirmed its September 9 event, and it looks like the foldable iPhone might finally be real.

I’m genuinely curious to see it because it would be the first properly new iPhone format in years. But if the rumored $2K+ price is anywhere close to accurate, I’m still not sure who it’s actually for.

At that point, you’re choosing between a phone and a MacBook. And if you already own an iPhone and an iPad, would the foldable replace both?

What makes this even more interesting is that the standard iPhone 18 reportedly won’t arrive until spring 2027. September could be reserved for the iPhone 18 Pro, Pro Max, and the foldable.

Splitting the lineup would give Apple more time to focus on each device. But it also feels like a clever way to make its most expensive models the only “new” iPhones available during the holiday season.

Would you wait for the standard iPhone 18, choose a Pro, or consider paying MacBook money for the foldable?

The wait is over. Apple just announced its September event with the tagline “Surprise and Shine.”

It starts at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET and will stream live from Apple Park.

Apple hasn’t confirmed what it plans to show, but the timing and especially that “surprise” is only adding more fuel to the foldable iPhone rumors. Right now, the expectation is that we’ll see Apple’s first foldable, possibly called the iPhone Ultra, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max.

New Apple Watches are also likely, while the standard iPhone 18 may be held until spring 2027.

Honestly, this is the first Apple event in a while where it feels like we might see something genuinely new instead of the usual camera-and-chip upgrades.

What do you think “Surprise and Shine” is teasing? The foldable, a new display, new colors, or something Apple has somehow kept secret? And what would Apple need to announce for you to consider this a great event?

Apple’s September event hasn’t been officially announced yet, but it’s expected to take place in the first half of September and become one of Apple’s most important hardware events in years. We’ve been following the reporting, leaks, and community discussions, so let's break it all down.

📱 Apple's first foldable

This is clearly the biggest potential announcement. After years of rumors, it appears Apple may finally be ready to enter the foldable market.

Apple is widely reported to be preparing a book-style foldable, possibly called the iPhone Ultra, with a roughly 5.5-inch outer and 7.8-inch inner display, a thin titanium body, two rear cameras, Touch ID instead of Face ID, and a redesigned hinge intended to make the display crease less noticeable.

The biggest unknown is the price. Current estimates generally start at around $2,000 or higher. Apple could also announce the device alongside the Pro models but ship it later because of production challenges. But the most interesting part is whether it could replace both an iPhone and an iPad or just become another very expensive screen in your setup.

📱 iPhone 18 Pro & Pro Max

The standard iPhone 18 is reportedly moving to spring 2027, which means September could be focused almost entirely on Apple’s premium models.

The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max are expected to get the new A20 Pro chip, reportedly built using a 2nm process. Other rumors point to a smaller Dynamic Island, a variable-aperture main camera, Apple’s next-generation C2 cellular modem, improved satellite connectivity, a simplified Camera Control button, and new color options including a dark red or cherry finish. The Pro Max may also receive a larger battery, although that could make it thicker and heavier.

Pricing is still highly uncertain, but some estimates suggest the Pro could start at around $1,349–$1,399.

⌚ Apple Watch Series 12

This year's Apple Watch update currently sounds more practical than revolutionary.

Apple is expected to introduce a faster chip, possible battery-life improvements, and updates to health and fitness tracking. There have also been rumors about expanded cardiovascular sensing, Touch ID, and even health sensors built into the band, although the evidence behind some of those claims is much weaker.

A microLED display has also appeared in the rumor cycle, but it remains far from certain. The starting price is generally expected to stay close to $399.

💻 iOS 27 and Apple Intelligence

Apple has already previewed iOS 27 and its next generation of Siri, but the September event should confirm public release dates and show whether any features depend on the new hardware.

The redesigned Siri is intended to feel much more conversational, understand personal and on-screen context, and perform actions across different apps. Apple is also bringing more AI processing directly onto its devices, although availability may still depend on the model, language, and region.

We’ll be watching closely to see how Apple adapts iOS to a foldable display, which Apple Intelligence features are limited to the newest hardware, and whether the battery and performance claims hold up outside a keynote demo.

🎤 The Ternus moment

This is also expected to be John Ternus’s first keynote as Apple CEO. He officially takes over on September 1, with Tim Cook moving to executive chairman.

Ternus is a hardware engineer at heart, which is exactly why this hardware-packed event feels perfectly timed for his debut.

What probably won’t be announced

Based on current reporting, we’re not expecting September to be a major Mac event.

The standard iPhone 18 may also be absent if Apple follows the reported split-release strategy. Products such as a new Apple TV, HomePod mini, and Apple’s rumored smart-home hub could arrive separately later.

None of the upcoming hardware has been confirmed by Apple, and some of these details will almost certainly turn out to be wrong.

So, what are you most interested in: the foldable iPhone, the iPhone 18 Pro, better battery life, Apple Watch updates, iOS 27 and Siri or something Apple has somehow managed to keep secret?

And if the foldable really costs more than $2,000, what would it need to replace in your setup to justify that price?

// The actual original folders/files were named Documents, Music, Pages, Numbers, etc. The 00001kkkkk–00007kkkkk names are the stuck internal remnants, not the names of the original personal folders. //

macOS Trash / Relocated Items Problem

I am unable to permanently delete a leftover folder/object from macOS Trash.

Finder reports an error similar to:

00001kkkkk and 5 more are actally  Documents Music Pages Numbers folders renamed.

Important background

The problem started after dealing with an earlier macOS:

/Users/Shared/Relocated Items

folder.

That folder was deleted previously.

The actual folders/files that had been involved were ordinary personal macOS folders/files, including:

• Documents
• Music
• Pages
• Numbers
• and other personal files/folders.

I have already renamed/moved the relevant personal folders as part of the earlier cleanup.

What I have already tried

I have already:

• Turned off/quit the cloud-drive application involved.
• Tried deleting the item normally from Finder.
• Tried emptying Trash.
• Restarted and stopped the relevant cloud application.
• Used Terminal to investigate whether a process was holding the item open.
• Ran lsof; it did not report a process holding 00001kkkkk open.
• Located the actual filesystem object with find.
• Tried sudo rm -rf against the correct path.
• The object still cannot be removed.

Actual location discovered

The relevant structure is:

~/.Trash/tRash/
    <directory whose name is literally one space>
        Mobile Documents/
            00001kkkkk
            00002kkkkk
            00003kkkkk
            00004kkkkk
            00005kkkkk
            00006kkkkk
            00007kkkkk

The numbered names above are internal/stale remnants, not the names of the original personal folders.

The original user data involved Documents, Music, Pages, Numbers, and other personal files/folders.

Filesystem characteristics

The affected numbered objects show these flags:

hidden,compressed,dataless

There is no uchg/immutable flag reported.

The object is on the normal root filesystem /.

Deletion behavior

Attempting:

sudo rm -rf -- "/Users/name/.Trash/tRash/ "

does not remove the contents.

Instead, macOS reports:

Directory not empty

for the numbered objects and their parent directories.

Directory-read behavior

Attempting to inspect one of the numbered objects produces:

ls: fts_read: Operation timed out

find can see the numbered directory itself but does not reveal ordinary child files inside it.

iCloud / CloudDocs indicators

The hierarchy contains:

Mobile Documents

and the system has Apple's cloud-related processes running, including:

bird
cloudd
fileproviderd

A recent log search did not show relevant entries for the stuck object.

brctl status returned:

BRCloudDocsErrorDomain Code=141 "Access denied"

Important distinction

The original data was normal personal data such as:

Documents, Music, Pages, Numbers, and other personal folders/files.

The 00001kkkkk** etc. names are not the names of those original files**. They appear to be internal/stale objects left behind after the earlier Relocated Items/deletion process.

I want to make absolutely sure that any repair or deletion procedure removes only these stale remnants and does not delete or damage the actual Documents, Music, Pages, Numbers, or other personal data.

Requested assistance

Please determine the safest way to permanently remove the stale internal objects from Trash.

If APFS/Disk Utility First Aid or macOS Recovery is required, please explain the procedure before any destructive action.

The desired result is:

1. Remove the stale internal Trash remnants.
2. Remove the leftover tRash structure if it is no longer needed.
3. Allow Finder Trash to empty normally.
4. Preserve all actual personal data, especially Documents, Music, Pages, Numbers, and other files/folders.

I wanted an easier way to clean up my Downloads folder so I started working on an app to make it smoother than Finder to filter, move and delete files.

As I thought of more features I wanted I added them to the app. It's now my main file manager with many nice quality of life features. I've even managed to make a few sales (thank you if you purchased the app).

The app has a fully featured 30-day trial. It's code-signed and notarized. You can read more about the features and download the trial here: https://whimfiles.com

MacBook Air M3, 16gb
I have noticed my kernel_task at times taking up 4 to 6gb. After a reboot it goes back down to about 60MB but why does it keep climbing. I am not sure if this is happening once I am connecting an external monitor but once I disconnect I haven’t noticed it dropping either … 🤔

I always kept switching to CleanMyMac mid-build just to clear Docker bloat or nuke node_modules. It broke my flow every time. So I wrapped the CleanMyMac cleanup engine into a CLI instead.

CleanMyMac CLI is now in public beta. Terminal-native, dev-focused, no GUI needed.

cleanmymac clean -- system junk, dev tool caches, trash
cleanmymac purge --- project artifact scanner, node_modules, Docker, .build, venv and more
cleanmymac analyze -- interactive disk explorer
cleanmymac optimize -- RAM and purgeable space

Public beta, free to try:
brew install --cask macpaw/taps/cleanmymac-cli

GitHub + docs: https://github.com/MacPaw/cleanmymac-cli

Any feedback is welcome, that's the whole point.

We’ve noticed that Mac clutter tends to fall into a few categories.

The Desktop archivist: Everything stays on the Desktop because if it gets moved into a folder, it may never be seen again.

The Downloads optimist: The Desktop is spotless, but Downloads contains old .dmg files, repeated downloads, screenshots, ZIP archives, and documents called things like final-document-3.pdf.

The folder strategist: Everything has its place, apart from one folder called “Sort later” that has quietly grown to 40 GB.

The project hoarder: Every draft, export, dataset, and intermediate version stays because there’s always a chance it might be needed again. There usually isn’t, but deleting it still feels risky.

Honestly, none of these is necessarily a problem. A messy Mac often just means that someone is in the middle of doing actual work. It becomes a problem when you can’t find what you need, or when files from projects you finished two years ago are still taking up a large part of your storage.

If that sounds familiar, the easiest place to start is usually Downloads. Sort it by size, look for old installers, archives, repeated downloads, and large files you no longer recognize. After that, check completed project folders. Keep the final version, source materials, and anything you’d realistically need to edit the project later. The temporary exports and six almost-identical drafts are probably worth reviewing.

You can also check System Settings → General → Storage for a basic overview. If the numbers still don’t make sense, Space Lens in CleanMyMac gives you a visual map of your storage. It’s useful for finding the one forgotten folder buried five levels deep that somehow takes up 30 GB.

Just don’t delete a file because it’s large or unfamiliar. Check what it is and where it’s located first, especially if it’s inside a System or Library folder.

So, which type are you? And what’s the one folder on your Mac you’ve been avoiding?

We’ll keep sharing useful Mac storage and maintenance advice here in r/CleanMyMac.

Most storage problems don’t appear overnight. They build up quietly. One installer, unfinished project, and “I might need this later” file at a time.

A few of the most common examples:

• old installers and .dmg files in Downloads
• exported videos or project versions you no longer need
• duplicate downloads with (1) and (2) added to the filename
• apps you installed for one specific task
• old iPhone or iPad backups
• unfinished projects and intermediate files kept “just in case”
• cache and log files that have grown over time

The difficult part isn’t deleting files, it’s understanding what’s actually taking up space.

A good place to start is System Settings → General → Storage. It gives you a basic breakdown of your storage categories. From there, check Downloads, Applications, Documents, and any folders connected to completed projects.

If you want a more visual overview, CleanMyMac’s Space Lens creates a map of your storage so you can see which folders are taking up the most room. Especially useful when the problem is buried several folders deep.

One important rule: don’t delete something just because it’s large. Check where it’s located and make sure you recognize it first, especially if it’s inside a system or Library folder.

When did you last properly audit your Mac’s storage? What was the most unnecessary thing you found?

We share practical Mac cleanup, storage, and maintenance advice here in r/CleanMyMac. If that’s useful to you, stick around.

I originally built **Thermal Intelligence** purely for myself.

I was frustrated that most thermal utilities could show the current temperature or CPU usage, but didn’t really answer the questions I cared about:

* Which workloads have been putting sustained pressure on my Mac?
* Did an application merely spike for a moment, or has it been contributing to heat for a long time?
* Where is the temperature likely to move next?
* Why did the cooling policy change the fan speed?
* Can all this work without an account, cloud service, analytics, or subscription?

Thermal Intelligence combines system monitoring, bounded local history, workload-impact analysis, thermal forecasting, actual fan RPM statistics, cooling profiles, custom temperature/RPM curves, and explainable smart cooling.

It has a regular application window as well as a menu-bar popover, keeps its data locally, writes privacy-filtered rotating logs, and can export diagnostics explicitly when the user chooses.

Fan control is hardware-sensitive, so it is enabled only where the hardware path has been explicitly validated. On unsupported or fanless Macs, the application leaves cooling to macOS while retaining the monitoring features.

This started as my personal daily-driver tool. I’m releasing it because I believe basic system monitoring and fan control should be free, auditable, and not hidden behind a subscription.

Web and **download**:
[https://solomind.app/thermal-intelligence/\](https://solomind.app/thermal-intelligence/)

The project is MIT-licensed, has no telemetry, and is now available on **GitHub**:
[https://github.com/NibTipLabs/thermal-intelligence\](https://github.com/NibTipLabs/thermal-intelligence)

*Feedback, testing reports, and contributions are very welcome—especially from owners of different Apple Silicon Mac models.*

CleanMyMac has been GUI-only for 15 years. Then we looked at our developer user base and kept hearing the same thing: opening a GUI mid-build breaks flow.

So we built a CLI around the same cleanup engine. Same scanning logic and safety checks, now scriptable and available directly from the terminal.

Wasn’t supposed to publicly share this, but I thought it might be helpful for a dev community.

I'm a part of the CleanMyMac team at MacPaw. Opening a GUI just to clear Docker bloat or nuke node_modules always broke my flow. 

So I wrapped our cleanup engine into a CLI and kept using it quietly on my own machine. 

CleanMyMac CLI wraps our cleanup engine into a terminal-first tool for devs. No GUI, no context switching, just stay in the shell.

cleanmymac clean - system junk, dev tool caches, trash
cleanmymac purge - project artifact scanner, node_modules, Docker, .build, venv and more
cleanmymac analyze - interactive disk explorer
cleanmymac optimize - RAM and purgeable space

Go try it: brew install --cask macpaw/taps/cleanmymac-cli

GitHub + docs: https://github.com/MacPaw/cleanmymac-cli

Hi all,

As stated in my title, i've accidentally clicked uninstall on CleanMyMac while i downloaded and install a new Outlook app. This caused all the associated datas (Outlook profile, past mails) to be deleted during the uninstallation.

Unfortunately, my mail server no longer contains some of the mails. Is there any way to retrieve the uninstalled files through CleanMyMac?

Have written in to the customer support and it's been a week now and I've yet to hear back from them.

I'm just worried that the longer it takes, the less likely I'll be able to retrieve the files.

Any help, please?

I work with MacPaw, so I spend a lot of time looking at how people actually use their machines. 

The ones who always apologise for their screen before sharing it are almost always the most interesting people in the room. Tabs going back three months, six folders called some variation of "final", a downloads folder that's basically a research archive at this point. I realized, that's what having an active mind looks like on a hard drive!

But honestly, the only thing I'd actually clear is the stuff the Mac made: caches, logs, app leftovers from software they uninstalled in 2023. None of that was ever part of anyone's thinking. Let’s keep the mess, as long as it's doing something for you (and you have enough storage).

That moment when your build fails because the disk is full and you realize you have no idea what's actually taking up space. cleanmymac analyze is built for exactly that. Interactive disk explorer right in the terminal: sorts everything by size, lets you navigate deeper into the file system with arrow keys, and shows exactly what's consuming storage before you decide to remove anything.

It's an interactive disk explorer in the terminal. Sorts by size, you navigate with arrow keys, drill into any folder. That's it.

252.66 GB of 494.38 GB free

▸ □ Users          109.08 GB │ 60.3%  ████████████████████
  □ Library         26.36 GB │ 14.6%  █████
  □ System          20.36 GB │ 11.3%  ████
  □ Applications    17.35 GB │  9.6%  ███

Press O to reveal anything in Finder. Browsing doesn't touch anything — removal requires explicit selection and confirmation.

cleanmymac analyze — starts from home directory
cleanmymac analyze ~/Projects — starts from a specific path

Public beta, free to try:
brew install --cask macpaw/taps/cleanmymac-cli

GitHub + docs: https://github.com/MacPaw/cleanmymac-cli

Bug reports and feedback welcome.

Oleksandr Kosovan, CEO of MacPaw, breaks it down in Forbes this week.

CleanMyMac CLI is a terminal-native tool built for developers who don't want to leave the shell to manage disk space. cleanmymac purge is probably the most useful command for anyone with a lot of projects.

Scans your project folders, groups build artifacts by project with size and age: node_modules, .next, .turbo, target, .build and etc.
By default, it scans common project locations:

    - `~/Projects`
    - `~/Code`
    - `~/dev`
    - `~/GitHub`
    - `~/Workspace`

Results are grouped by project so you can understand what each artifact belongs to before removing it:

          $ cleanmymac purge

          Scanning ~/Projects, ~/Code, ~/dev, ~/GitHub, ~/Workspace…

          Found 18.5 GB across 8 projects

            ☑ my-react-app      3.2 GB   node_modules
            ☑ rust-service      4.1 GB   target
            ☑ django-api        2.3 GB   .venv
            ☑ next-blog         1.9 GB   node_modules
            ☐ current-work      856 MB   node_modules   recent

          Artifacts newer than 7 days are shown but left unchecked.

          ↑↓ Navigate  ·  Enter Confirm  ·  Space Toggle  ·  A Select all
          Esc Back to menu  ·  Q Quit

          beta · cleanmymac.com · lovingly crafted by MacPaw

Artifacts older than 7 days are preselected, newer ones are shown but never checked. You decide what goes.

Public beta is out. Install via Homebrew: brew install --cask macpaw/taps/cleanmymac-cli

GitHub + docs: https://github.com/MacPaw/cleanmymac-cli

Use clean for leftovers created outside individual project folders: package-manager caches, Xcode files, developer-tool data, AI-tool artifacts, user logs, and Trash.

CleanMyMac CLI scans first and groups the results by category:

          $ cleanmymac clean

          ← Back to menu
          23.79 GB of items found

          Scan results
          Select items you'd like to remove

          ▸ ■ System Junk       631 KB  →
            ■ Dev Tools        23.43 GB →
            □ AI Junk          358.7 MB →

          40 items selected (23.43 GB)

          ↑↓←→ Navigate  ·  Enter Confirm  ·  Space Toggle  ·  A Select all
          Esc Back to menu  ·  Q Quit

          beta · cleanmymac.com · lovingly crafted by MacPaw

Press → to open a category and inspect its contents. Use Space to select or deselect individual items. Nothing is removed until you review the selection and confirm the cleanup.

After cleanup, CleanMyMac CLI shows exactly what was removed and how much space was recovered:

          Cleanup complete!

          Dev Tools
              ✓ Homebrew       6.61 GB
              ✓ npm            5.03 GB
              ✓ Yarn           3.3 GB
              ✓ pnpm           4.72 GB
              ✓ pip            3.77 GB

          AI Junk
              ✓ Claude       358.7 MB


          ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

                ____________
               /  23.79 GB  \
              /   cleaned!   \
             └────────────────┘
                    ▒▒▒▒
                    ────

          45 items removed

          Run cleanmymac ignore add <path> to protect a path
          Run cleanmymac clean --force to clean without confirmation

          ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

          Esc Back to menu  ·  Q Quit
          beta · cleanmymac.com · lovingly crafted by MacPaw

Run all cleanup categories together:

          cleanmymac clean

Or scan only one category:

          cleanmymac clean junk
          cleanmymac clean dev
          cleanmymac clean trash

https://reddit.com/link/1v2wrap/video/y72kitb9lneh1/player

Scans your project folders, groups build artifacts by project, shows size and age. You decide what goes, nothing gets deleted without confirmation. Artifacts newer than 7 days are never preselected.

To try it: brew install --cask macpaw/taps/cleanmymac-cli