Clusters for Mac1.7.2

This was a great little app, as it stands now I can't seem to get it to work since the 10.13 upgrade.

This app was a great way to gain a few extra GB of disk space on a packed HD. I also found on older systems (ones without SSDs) that it actually reduced the load times of larger applications, in some cases quite substantially...

Since the Mac OS X 10.13 update this doesn't appear to break anything, but it sits permanently idle. When I try adding a folder to the app I'm warned that it appears I'm adding a folder that is not part of the boot volume (even though I am)...

It may simply be that apple's new format no longer benefits from what this app does. If you are using an older system pre-dating 10.13, and especially if you have a non SSD, I'd still recommend this app.

I guess development on this is dead? Does anyone know if it works with 10.11? If not are there any alternatives? Terminal commands?

The last blog entry on their website is from March 2012...:-/ Anyway, Clusters has been working ok for years, here on OS 10.9.5. In fact, when installed, and once it has compressed the files, you don't even know it's there — I was wondering if it was still working, indeed! ;-) To check the gain, the easier solution I found is to Get Info on a big folder and compare it to the result for a Terminal command (du -sh path_to_the_folder) — multiplied by 1024×1024×1024, if you want a fair reading, Finder considering that 1 KB = 1000 bytes). The result for my /Applications folder gives 36GB against 28GB, a nice 8GB gain! If you're interested in HFS+ file compression, this article highlights a few utilities: http://www.cnet.com/news/unix-commands-for-managing-hfs-compression-in-os-x/ Some links are broken, but you'll easily find them — afsctool seems what you need to use for compressing files and folders without copying them.

Prefpane not opening under 10.9.3

I have been waiting since Dec. 20th for this company to respond to my tech support request. I can't get my serial number to register in a second account on the same machine. Supposedly, I'm supposed to be able to, but it won't work, and they won't get back to me...

I am a fan of Clusters for a long time. I tend to use up all the available space on my drives and this extends my general usability. But I have noticed false reads of the space on my main drive. Once I restart it goes back to normal but I am curious is this is an issue with Clusters or some other drive issue.

An excellent Application which saves space on my hard drive.

I think that clusters may actually be slowing down my OS (otherwise it's the space that was used up). After I re-installed my OS and apps, I noticed that *everything* was MUCH faster. I do love the idea of saving space, but not at the cost of the speed and reliability of my overall experience. This app should run completely seamlessly in the background, with adjustable priority/speed. It also should take fewer resources while doing its job. The places in which you'd gain the most space would be documents, pictures, and apps. Videos, archives, audio, and other extremely large files will barely get any change. (the /system and /library is also excluded). On Average I'd say that you'd gain 10-15% more space on your hard drive. However, I would not recommend this for SSD users because this is specifically meant for a HD. I would recommend extra storage over compressing, because if you lose that much data it's bad, and there's most likely some files on your HD that you haven't used in months. I would recommend investing in a small SSD and replacing the disc drive with it, or a 64G SanDisk class 10 SDXC card. Running the OS/apps from either is well worth an investment, especially for the new MBP or Air. All in all, this app is really is good if one were too lazy to sort through their data or cannot afford another storage device. It's okay for students/businesses if they have no other options. If it's just out of curiosity or wanting to make the best use of your HD, it's really not worth it in the long-run.

I finally got a response after a few weeks... According to what they told me my email had gotten lost in a sea of spam... They worked with me and ended up releasing an update which fixed my issues. It's now working fine for me...

Company seems to be closed. I couldn't get any reply to my mails since about a month.