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TinkerTool System 4 is a collection of system utility features helping you in performing advanced administration tasks on Apple Macintosh computers. The application makes use of a self-adapting user interface which automatically adjusts to the computer model and to the version of OS X you are running. All options available in the current situation are accessible via "panes", very similar to the techniques you already know from the System Preferences application. The features are controlled via a single window which allows you to use the application as a general toolbox and First Aid assistant.
This includes:
- built-in maintenance features of OS X, usually not visible on the graphical user interface,
- extended file operations, not available in the OS X Finder,
- the possibility to access advanced system settings which are not visible in System Preferences,
- genuine and unique features of TinkerTool System, designed to resolve typical real-world problems of administrators and to fix the effects of certain defects ("bugs") in the operating system,
- an emergency tool to troubleshoot and repair OS X in cases where the graphical user interface is no longer starting correctly or the user account of the system administrator has been damaged,
- features to protect your privacy, e.g. by reviewing and editing the list of Internet cookies stored for your user account,
- functions to collect advanced information about the hardware, operating system, and applications.
Together with its sister program TinkerTool which is available at no charge, TinkerTool System is a perfect substitute for the following types of system utilities:
- Finder enhancers,
- Cache and font cache cleaners,
- Tools to access hidden preference settings,
- Applications to make objects invisible in the Finder,
- Internet browser privacy protection tools,
- Cookie managers for Safari,
- Tools to remove international language support files,
- Log file browsers,
- Application uninstallers,
- Single User Mode troubleshooting tools,
- Spell-checker dictionary editors,
and many others.
Features in Detail
- Repeat the system optimization procedure of the Apple Installer if necessary.
- Clear the Directory Services cache and the cache of the name service (DNS) client.
- Enable or disable the system's maintenance job for the locate database.
- Let the system update the locate database immediately.
- Troubleshoot application-related caches by the unique cache deactivation feature, avoiding the bad side effects of cache cleaning if possible.
- Clear and rebuild the font caches of a single user account or the whole operating system.
- Clear and rebuild the startup driver cache of OS X.
- Rebuild the system cache for Cross-Program Communication (XPC helper cache).
- Evaluate memory statistics to assess if the installed RAM size is appropriate for the computer's workload.
- Check if the current version of the OS X Finder is affected by certain defects which could lead to problems when copying files.
- Inspect technical details of optical disk media, like manufacturer, recording type, session information, etc.
- Let Time Machine compare the backup sets for a volume at two different points in time, allowing you to monitor what files have changed and how Time Machine is operating.
- Check if Time Machine is operating correctly by comparing the current data on your computer with a backup set.
- Install an emergency utility which can help you even if OS X is suffering from major damage (see below).
- Verify when OS X has run its internal maintenance scripts and start scripts manually if necessary.
- Remove code support for unneeded processor architectures from Universal applications or other software components ("thinning").
- Get information about the production date of your Mac.
- Get detail information about the exact Intel processor type in your Mac.
- Get information about components, expansion slots, jumpers and other details from the system management database built into your Mac.
- Create system inventory files or print-outs.
- Display the current status of the operating system's anti-malware protection system.
- Show the current blacklist of OS X used to automatically deactivate App Nap and HiDPI functions ("Retina display mode") in certain applications.
- Show the current blacklist of OS X used to automatically prevent the launch of certain applications or the used of specific kernel extensions.
- Get access to more than 100 types of log files and reports kept by OS X and its subcomponents.
- Create symbolic links and hard links as an alternative to classic Mac OS aliases or bookmarks in the file system.
- Protect or unprotect files or a whole hierarchy of folders.
- Make files invisible or change their type and creator codes.
- Analyze and remove quarantine data of files or bundles.
- Let OS X analyze the true contents of files, independent of type codes or file name extensions.
- Retrieve all Spotlight metadata the system has stored for a file.
- Enforce deletion of protected files or a hierarchy of folders.
- Perform an enforced "empty Trash" operation, selectable by disk.
- Remove Extended Attributes, including resource forks, from files.
- Remove Finder view settings from folders (.DS_Store files).
- Remove AppleDouble files (emulated forks or Extended Attributes on foreign file systems).
- Remove log file archives.
- Remove crash report files.
- Remove orphaned files and folders from users who no longer have an account.
- Remove broken aliases from a hierarchy of folders.
- Clean Mac resources from external drives before the disks are given to users of foreign operating systems.
- Remove Post Mortem Core Dump files.
- Remove language support packages safely from the operating system or from third-party software.
- Let TinkerTool System assist you in removing applications which have been installed by drag-and-drop operation. All user accounts can be cleaned from nearly all application-related files.
- Deinstall widgets, screen savers, preference panes, QuickTime plug-ins or Internet plug-ins.
- Show the security details of any native application, including "App class" status, Gatekeeper assessment, digital sealing, and individual definitions for the Application Sandbox. (*)
- Detect and remove the most familiar types of ad-injection applications (adware)
- Display and change the true permission setting of file system objects, getting full control over Access Control Lists (ACLs).
- Sort entries of Access Control Lists canonically.
- Remove inherited Access Control Entries.
- Make inherited Access Control Entries explicit.
- Propagate subsets of folder permissions onto a whole hierarchy of enclosed objects, including the feature to remove all ACLs
- Let TinkerTool System compute the effective permissions for a user accessing an object.
- Get access to special permission settings of OS X.
- Set the energy saver options for hard drives, specifying the exact sleep timeout.
- Control whether OS X should mount secondary volumes before login.
- Block disk volumes from automatic mounting and program execution.
- Show the size of Spotlight index databases on all supported volumes.
- Control operations of the Spotlight metadata stores per volume.
- Block selected disk volumes from all Spotlight operations.
- Define the default user for the password panel of the Finder when connecting to file servers.
- Unlock outdated authentication methods to connect to old AFP servers
- Enable the Access Control List permission features of the SMB file server.
- Unlock System Preferences to offer screen resolutions for HiDPI mode on standard screens, permitting to simulate Retina operation on non-Retina displays.
- Activate OS X's advanced preference pane for the Archive Utility.
- Remove custom preference panes from user accounts or the whole operating system.
- Specify server and port number of the OS X Software Update Server.
- Control the privacy guideline of the screen sharing feature of OS X.
- Disable automatic login even if FileVault 2 is enabled.
- Control the local snapshots feature of Time Machine.
- Control the job history policy of the OS X printing subsystem.
- Enable or disable the web interface of the printing subsystem.
- Switch off the Sudden Motion Sensor of portable Apple computers.
- Control the energy saver wake-up settings for mobile computers with a display lid.
- Manage the Safe Sleep and standby features of mobile systems and remove the sleep file if desired.
- Specify the different startup modes of OS X (verbose and safe startup).
- Disable the Dark Wake feature.
- Let the power control for display screens behave similar to the policy formerly used in old Mac OS X versions.
- Permit the use of unsigned kernel extensions.
- Control whether processor cores should remain powered up even if they are idle.
- Reconfigure kernel panic logging in case automatic recording of logs does not work for a serious panic problem.
- Let the system use only one processor core or a limited amount of RAM for diagnostic purposes.
- Control the NMI feature of the power switch.
- Disable the memory compression feature.
- Change the language setting for system startup and the login screen.
- Set the display style of the login screen.
- Disable one or more power control buttons of the login screen.
- Enable additional features and a text message in the login screen.
- Control the screen saver of the login screen.
- Enable Apple's basic screen saver for the login screen and set the message it should display.
- Hide selected local acconts in the list of users on the login screen.
- Launch multi-lingual applications in a language different from your usually preferred one.
- Verify the integrity of preference files effective for a user account. (This includes actual checks on the preferences structure, not only simple syntactical checks of "plist" files.
- Find preference files of network accounts, removing files which refer to decommissioned computers.
- Let TinkerTool System verify the integrity of your login items.
- Let OS X rebuild the Launch Services Database for a selected user account.
- Edit the personal dictionaries of a user account created after learning unknown words via the OS X spell-checker.
- Repair the System Preferences application when it behaves erratically.
- Repair the OS X Help Viewer when it no longer works correctly.
- Repair the translation of folder names in a user's home folder.
- Get advanced information about a user account, viewing details not visible in System Preferences.
- Remove entries for recent items and recent servers from the Apple menu, the Finder and all applications, protecting your privacy.
- Clean your user account from privacy-related data collected by Safari 8
- Clean the Spotlight data for finding words on web pages visited with Safari.
- Clean all SQL databases or selected HTML 5 local storage databases created by Safari.
- Clean your user account from a selectable set of Flash cookies (Local Shared Objects created by the Adobe Flash Player Internet Plug-In).
- Clean your user account from site-specific Flash settings.
- Access your personal Flash security settings.
- Review and delete individual cookies in the shared cookie store of your user account (used by Safari and other OS X components).
- Reset the privacy settings for selected domains that control which applications should have permission to access personal user data to factory defaults.
- Integrate the control panes of TinkerTool directly into TinkerTool System, getting access to the full feature set in a single control window.
Features of the Included Standalone Utility
- Verifying and repairing the startup disk before startup.
- Verifying and repairing the system's folder for the storage of temporary objects.
- Verifying and resetting permission settings of operating system files, independent of the graphical user interface.
- Performing an automatic quick check and repair procedure to ensure a sufficiently good state of the base operating system.
- Deactivating corrupt preference files for a user account.
- Deleting user-related Input Managers.
- Deactivating and reactivating cache contents of a user account.
- Deactivating and reactivating all preference settings of a user account.
- Deactivating corrupt system preference files.
- Deleting system-wide Input Managers.
- Deactivating and reactivating the contents of system-wide caches.
- Resetting network-managed preferences (MCX).
- Resetting the login screen
- Removing third-party startup objects.
- Cleaning the swap space.
- Disabling automatic login.
- Showing hardware information, including processor details and the S.M.A.R.T. status of hard drives.
- Uninstalling the emergency tool, independent of the graphical user interface.
Version 4.81:
Version 4.81 (Build 160831)
Added new feature for OS X El Capitan to change the computer setting for optimizing system performance for server operations with OS X Server.
Analyzing log files is now automatically decoupled from application startup if a high number of logs is detected. Excessive log files on a computer no longer slow down the launch of the program.
The use of different workarounds for bugs in OS X Yosemite and OS X El Capitan could create subtle compatibility problems with version 4.8 if operating system, main application, privileged auxiliary program, and the Standalone Utility have been updated in a specific order. Launching version 4.81 analyzes this situation and replaces the helper programs if necessary to resolve such problems.
Version 4.8 (Build 160823)
Added support for upcoming versions of Safari.
Added additional features and documentation to detect cases where System Integrity Protection is causing internal failures of OS X El Capitan.
Updated all quarantine features to ensure full compatibility with the latest versions of OS X.
Resolved minor issues with the compatibility of Safari 9.1.1 and later.
Better user interface presentation when displaying permission settings of file system objects which lost their owners.
Enhanced reliability when the tool is used under bad conditions, in particular when the operating system is exceeding the maximum number of open communication file handles.
The application now shows concrete instructions how to resolve specific technical problems when defects of OS X cause the privileged component not to launch correctly.
Resolved a user interface issue where the topmost entry of the pop-menu to control IPv6 support was not refreshed correctly directly after program launch.
The option to control ACL support for the SMB server had to be removed, because it is no longer working as expected with the latest versions of OS X.
Requirements: OS X Yosemite 10.10 or later
Language: Multilangual
