MacKeeper Review: Everything You Need to Know

Apple is known for strong privacy and security, but macOS isn’t completely immune to malware and online threats. To stay protected, a reliable Mac cleaner is essential for tackling spyware, adware, and data breaches. One option is MacKeeper—but is it worth it? In this MacKeeper review, I’ll cover its features, safety, pricing, and effectiveness.

MacKeeper At A Glance

⭐ Rating	4.5★★★★☆
💰 Price	From $5.95/month
🆓 Free Version	Yes
🎁 Free Trial	No
🖥️ Platform	macOS
📱 Number of Devices Protected	1-3
🔍 Malware Scans	Manual & Scheduled
🛡️ Firewall	No
⚔️ Phishing Protection	No

What Is MacKeeper?

MacKeeper is an all-in-one utility for macOS, developed by ZeoBIT and later acquired by Kromtech Alliance Corp. It’s designed to optimize, secure, and clean Macs, offering features like:

Feature	Explanation
Antivirus	Scans and removes various malware, such as viruses, trojans, and ransomware, to protect your Mac.
Adware Cleaner	Detects and eliminates unwanted adware and pop-ups for a smoother browsing experience.
Safe Cleanup	Frees up storage space by removing unnecessary files, cache, and temporary data from your Mac.
Duplicates Finder	Identifies and removes duplicate files to recover storage space and optimize your Mac’s performance.
Smart Uninstaller	Uninstalls applications and their associated files completely, ensuring no leftover data remains.
Memory Cleaner	Optimizes your Mac’s memory by freeing up RAM, improving overall system performance.
Update Tracker	Monitors and notifies you about available updates for installed apps, keeping them up to date.
Login Items	Manages and optimizes startup applications, helping your Mac boot up faster.
ID Theft Guard	Protects your personal information by monitoring and alerting you of potential data breaches.
Private Connect	Provides a secure and private internet connection using an encrypted VPN service.
StopAd	Blocks ads and trackers to enhance your browsing experience and protect your privacy online.

MacKeeper Review: What Can MacKeeper Do?

MacKeeper offers features like malware protection, system cleanup, identity protection, and ad blocking. Here’s a closer look at how it can improve your Mac experience.

The Best Thing About MacKeeper

MacKeeper has plenty of great features that I’ll discuss in detail below, but what I like most about MacKeeper is its nifty menu icon (the one with the little mk).

When my Mac slows down, I simply click the MacKeeper icon in the menu bar to access all optimization tools in one place.

With MacKeeper, I can clean my Mac’s memory or run a virus scan with a single click, restoring its speed in seconds. Here’s a video tutorial on using the Memory Cleaner via the MacKeeper menu icon:

1. Antivirus: Protection Your Mac Deserves

MacKeeper’s Antivirus offers 24/7 protection against malware, viruses, adware, and ransomware, with on-demand scanning for suspicious files. It provides full and custom scans in the Security section.

Real-time protection, once enabled, automatically scans downloads and quarantines threats. My 10-minute test scan found no issues, though it didn’t show file counts. Overall, it’s a reliable tool for Mac security.

MacKeeper’s scans quickly improved from 10 minutes to under 2, thanks to file caching, all without slowing down my Mac. Its speed, accuracy, and high malware detection rate impressed me, though showing file counts would be a welcome feature.

2. Adware Cleaner: Security for Your Files

Meet MacKeeper’s Adware Cleaner, a dedicated tool to delete adware from your Mac. Unlike many antivirus programs, it highlights adware cleaning as a standalone feature, which is often overlooked.

Now, let me share my experience with this Adware Cleaner. My scan was completed in under two minutes. Either it’s super fast, or my Mac was just clean as a whistle with no adware threats.

Real-time adware monitoring isn’t enabled by default, but turning it on is quick and easy with one click. While I wish it was ready out of the box, setup was simple.

3. Safe Cleanup: One-Click Clean for Your Mac

MacKeeper’s Safe Cleanup works like a powerful vacuum, clearing junk files like logs, caches, trash, email attachments, and unused languages—even mail attachments, which many cleaners skip.

In less than a minute, it found 7.7 GB of junk on my Mac, showing how overdue my hard drive was for a cleanup!

Before diving into cleaning, here’s a heads-up: MacKeeper’s Safe Cleanup doesn’t prompt you to review files before clicking Clean, except for the Trash category. Once you hit Clean Junk Files, everything is gone.

If you use Apple Mail and want to keep attachments, review each category in the sidebar, deselect important files, and then proceed to Clean Junk Files on your Mac.

4. Duplicates Finder: Kill the Doubles Quickly

The Duplicates Finder quickly scans your Mac for duplicate files, photos, and screenshots wasting space. In under a minute, it found 856 duplicates taking up 393 MB—perfect for freeing up storage on your Mac.

So, if you’re looking to delete duplicates on your Mac, you’ll want to take a closer look at these culprits.

The Duplicates Finder stands out by letting you review files before deletion, unlike Safe Cleanup. By default, it marks duplicate files for removal, but you can check file details and preview images if needed.

While Similar Photos and Screenshots require manual selection, MacKeeper suggests the best photo among similar ones. It’s a simple, organized tool, though adding support for music and archive files would make it even better.

5. Smart Uninstaller: The Ultimate Space Saver

Uninstalling apps on a Mac isn’t as simple as dragging them to the Trash—it often leaves behind leftover and cache files. That’s where the Smart Uninstaller shines, scanning for unused apps, plugins, widgets, and browser extensions and removing them completely.

During my test, the scan took under two minutes and found 11.35 GB of unused items. I could view details for each category and select what to remove, making it a standout tool compared to others like McAfee and Intego that lack this feature.

Apps are sorted by usage, making it easy to spot and remove rarely used ones. By default, only Leftovers are marked for removal.

However, the Smart Uninstaller lacks warnings about critical macOS items. For example, deleting Spotlight plugins triggers only a confirmation prompt, with no caution about their importance.

So, what’s my final take on the Smart Uninstaller? It’s a gem of a feature that makes finding and removing unused applications, plugins, and extensions as easy as pie. But I’d give it a standing ovation if MacKeeper threw in a clear, in-app warning to ensure I don’t accidentally send anything important to the digital graveyard.

6. Memory Cleaner: The RAM Doctor

Memory Cleaner displays how your device’s RAM (Random Access Memory) is being utilized and allows you to free up RAM on your Mac to enhance overall performance.

The Clean Memory feature lets you clear RAM with a click, freeing over 3 GB in my test. It provides detailed memory allocation insights for better control.

The Apps & Processes section identifies memory-hogging apps and allows you to close them directly. It safeguards critical apps, like MacKeeper, by locking them, ensuring safe optimization. A practical tool for managing your Mac’s performance.

7. Update Tracker: Keep Your Apps Up-to-Date

Picture this: a trusty detective scanning your device’s applications, tirelessly looking for any that need a little TLC in the form of updates.

After all, keeping your apps up-to-date on Mac is crucial to prevent hackers from finding a chink and exploiting system vulnerabilities to nab your data.

However, what surprised me was when I checked the App Store, there were only four updates. MacKeeper missed a macOS security update but found three extra app updates, making the Update Tracker a mixed bag.

8. Login Items: Reduce Your Mac’s Startup Time

MacKeeper’s Login Items boosts your Mac’s start-up speed by managing programs that launch at boot. Unlike many security tools, it includes this handy feature. During my test, it identified 17 items slowing down my Mac’s start-up.

Some start-up items are locked and can’t be removed. I removed three others, but my already fast Mac showed no noticeable start-up improvement.

9. ID Theft Guard: Control Your Online Identity

MacKeeper’s ID Theft Guard scans for email breaches and alerts you, outperforming competitors like Intego, Bitdefender, and TotalAV.

After adding my email, it scanned for breaches and reported No data breaches found. I enabled real-time monitoring to stay alert for any future threats.

10. VPN Private Connect: Your Online Privacy Protector

MacKeeper’s Private Connect VPN stands out with its impressive features:

• Unlimited data for seamless browsing.
• 300+ servers across 50+ countries for wide coverage.
• 256-bit AES encryption for top-tier security.
• P2P torrenting support on select servers.
• Protection against WebRTC and DNS leaks for enhanced privacy.

In my tests, it only reduced download speeds by 20%, making it much faster than typical VPNs. It also excels at unblocking streaming sites, outperforming competitors like Avira’s VPN. Fast, reliable, and feature-rich, it’s a strong addition to the MacKeeper suite.

11. StopAd: Stop Annoying Ads

Meet StopAd, MacKeeper’s ad-blocker that kicks ads and trackers off your browser. After a quick setup, it works silently in Safari or Chrome, monitoring every page you visit.

In my test, StopAd blocked 3 ads and 4 trackers on a single YouTube video, with the count rising as I browsed further. It even shows which sites were blocked, offering transparency and a smoother browsing experience.

12. Find & Fix: One-Click Mac Optimizer

MacKeeper’s Find & Fix feature offers a quick, one-click scan that covers four main categories:

• Security
• Privacy
• Cleaning
• Performance

The scan provides an overview of issues affecting your Mac. You can either:

1. Select Fix Items Safely to let MacKeeper handle them automatically.
2. Click Review & Fix under each category to address specific issues, or

The Find & Fix feature is useful for quickly checking your Mac’s status, but the Fix Items Safely button may prompt users to fix issues without reviewing the changes.

MacKeeper Tech Support: Your 24/7 Personal Tech Expert

MacKeeper’s 24/7 tech support features 150+ experts with a 93% satisfaction rate and over 1 million cases resolved. Premium Services go beyond troubleshooting, offering assistance for software, apps, and mail issues, plus an Advanced System Tune-up to optimize performance and security.

Subscribers also get ZoomDiagnostics, a tool for deep hardware analysis, performance checks, and security insights, with built-in live chat for instant expert help.

MacKeeper Pricing and Plans

MacKeeper offers a range of pricing plans to suit different needs and budgets.

Here’s a breakdown of MacKeeper’s current plans:

Plan Type	Supported Devices	Cost	Billing Cycle
1-Month Plan	1 Mac	$14.95/month	Monthly
12-Month Plan	1 Mac	$5.95/month	Yearly
12-Month Plan	3 Macs	$7.45/month	Yearly

Get Started With MacKeeper in 3 Steps

Before you can start benefiting from MacKeeper’s list of features to optimize your Mac’s performance, improve security, and manage data, you need to install and activate it.

Here are the steps to help you install and activate MacKeeper on your Mac:

Step 1: Download and Install

1. Go to the official website of MacKeeper and click the Download button.

2. The download process will begin, and the installer file will save to your Mac’s Downloads folder. Click the down arrow in the upper right corner and select Show in Finder to access the file.

3. In the Downloads folder, double-click the installer file to start the installation process.

4. Click Continue on the Install window.

5. Click Install.

6. Enter your Mac’s password and click Install Software.

7. The installation process will start. Click OK on the prompt to give access to the Downloads folder.

8. Wait for the installation process to complete. Click Close on the Installation Successful notification.

9. Now, you can launch MacKeeper and start using it.

Step 2: Get an Activation Code

Here’s how to get an activation code for MacKeeper:

1. Launch MacKeeper on your Mac and click Unlock Full Version in the lower-left corner.

2. Select your plan and tap Instant Activation.

3. Fill in your payment information and click Buy Now.

4. You’ll receive an email titled Your MacKeeper Order containing the 16-digit activation code.

Step 3: Activate MacKeeper License

Usually, the license activates automatically within 5 minutes, but you can do it manually if it doesn’t. Here’s how to activate your MacKeeper license:

1. Open MacKeeper on your Mac and click MacKeeper in the menu bar.

2. Select Enter Activation Code in the drop-down menu.

3. Paste the activation code for the license you purchased and click Apply Code.

4. Next, enter your email address and click Create My Account.

5. That’s it. Your MacKeeper account has been activated. Click OK to access its features.

My Verdict: Is MacKeeper Worth the Investment?

Now that I’ve covered the installation, features, and pricing of MacKeeper, let’s answer the most important question: is MacKeeper worth the investment? I’d say yes.

Overall, MacKeeper offers a range of useful features designed to keep your Mac running smoothly and protect it from security threats. Its cleaning and optimization tools are particularly helpful to free up space on your hard drive and improve your Mac’s performance.

Frequently Asked Questions