PrefsOverload 3.5.4, the latest version of the utility for managing the Preferences Folder in both the traditional Mac operating system and Mac OS X, is now available for download.
The update handles Mac OS X long file names correctly and fixes various bugs. Plus, OS X version of PrefsOverload was compiled using REALbasic 4.0.1 from Real Software instead of 3.5.2, improving stability, according to developer Angelo Scicolone.
PrefsOverload is a tool for managing the Preferences Folder, which contains your various Preference Files, the 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, according to Scicolone. This can occur, for example, when their “mother” application is no longer installed on your Mac. Over time the Preferences Folder will slowly grow and may become filled with files created by no-longer-used or demo programs.
“The trouble is that all these unused or unusable files still continue to take up valuable disk space,” Scicolone said. “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, a US$15 shareware app, 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 lets you search for specific Preference Files, by their type/creator or their creation/modification date, and more.