Topics | Cleaning
Scanning preferences folders
There are multiple preferences folders in Mac OS X. Typically there is one preferences folder for settings which apply to all users, plus one for each user. Thus there are a minimum of two for a single user Macintosh running Mac OS X, and more if there are multiple users. Use the Cleaning Scan Preferences Folder command to configure and initiate a Preferences folder scan. Select one of the following folders to scan:

- User Preferences folder - This is the folder applications and the operating system use to store preferences specific to the current user.
- Local Preferences folder - This is the folder applications and the operating system use to store preferences which apply to all users.

Using the last accessed date
Mac OS X maintains a last-accessed date for all files and folders. File Buddy can use this date to identify preferences files which have not been accessed recently. This would indicate that either the owner application is missing, or you haven't used it recently. For this reason, we strongly recommend using the Don't report items accessed in the last: option to use access dates when scanning preferences folders to reduce false hits by ignoring recently accessed preferences files when attempts to identify an owner have failed. Use the pop-up menu to specify what File Buddy should consider "recent" for the purposes of reporting unused preferences.
File Buddy does its best to identify unused files, but cannot guarantee that files identified as possibly unused are in fact not used.
Cleaning your file system