FontNuke

A FREE tool for removing font cache files on Mac OS X Mac OS X. Fonts. Font Caches. ERRR! Having the forementioned as part of my daily grind, enough is enough and frustration sets in! So I made a tool to make my life easier.

Solution? FontNuke.

FontNuke is a utility application for Mac OS X Tiger / Leopard that removes corrupt / troublesome font cache files. I created this application as a tool for my personal use at the office, and has become very useful for me. To grant individual non-admin users the ability to remove font cache files, without my involvement--is HUGE! Not to mention intelligent application quitting, plus a GUARANTEED reboot, makes my life easier. FontNuke removes system font caches (Mac OS X font cache files), Adobe font caches (*.lst), Microsoft Office font caches, and now also (as of version 1.0.6) QuarkXPress 6.x/7.x font cache files.

I formerly had shell scripts installed on my clients, and would log in via SSH, then execute my cache removal script each and every time the clients had a font issue. That gets old fast, so rather than continue to work that way, I assembled FontNuke.

I made this application for myself, and I'm just posting it here to share. On top of the fact I like free things, so hey...why not keep it free! If FontNuke is useful to anyone else, please--help yourself. I take no responsibility for any products of misuse.

FontNuke has been an indispensible tool for me. Especially as a sysadmin with non-admin users experiencing font cache issues. Empowering users with tools to remain productive is what I'm all about.

I have recently added an option which purges spotlight indexes on startup volume from /.Spotlight-V100. This has been added due to some intermittent unresponsiveness when searching network volumes for some of my MCX clients.

NOTE: Please use this feature (Reset Spotlight) with caution. This feature will purge all Spotlight indexes without a forced rebuild. This is recommended ONLY if you understand fully the contents of /.Spotlight-V100. Volume re-indexing may take minutes to several hours.

NOTE: Currently FontNuke will ONLY find cache files from one(1) version of QuarkXPress 6.x on the startup volume. I am working on improving this for those systems with multiple versions of QuarkXPress 6.x installed abreast.

Questions? Visit the NEW: FontNuke FAQ

System Requirements
  • Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.x - Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.x

Download

 FontNuke-1.15.dmg (download)

To Do

  • Improve dynamic font cache locating to better gather font cache files on systems with multiple versions of QuarkXPress 6/7 and/or QuarkXPress Passport. Currently limited to standard installations of QuarkXPress 6/7.
  • Improve performance and responsiveness when a large quantity of font cache files are present on the system.
  • Improve efficiency of font cache removal when using Admin-Free mode. Current security mechanism is sluggish when a large quantity of font cache files are present on a system.

Release Notes

1.1.5 (01-07-2008)

  • Major performance improvements when locating font cache files.
  • Added font cache removal for the QuarkXPress 7.3.1 update.

1.1.4 (12-12-2007)

  • Fixed a coding error introduced in version 1.1.3, which caused the FontNuke GUI to display the incorrect quantity of cache files found on some Leopard systems.

1.1.3 (12-11-2007)

  • FontNuke is now a Universal Binary application.
  • Added font cache support of for Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.x.

1.1.2 (08-21-2007)

  • Fixed a bug which prevented FontNuke from properly executing on some Intel systems.

1.1.1 (06-05-2007)

  • Improved filtering for removal of Adobe font cache files @ ~/Library/Caches/Adobe. The v1.0.9 update added the removal of all Adobe cache files @ ~/Library/Caches/Adobe, which unknowingly caused Adobe Bridge and other color settings to reset to default. This has been repaired to only purge font related cache files.

1.1.0 (04-02-2007)

  • Added cache file count when updating caches list.
  • Improved progress notification(s) and GUI responsiveness when large amounts of cache files are present on a given system.
  • Improved overall performance.
  • Added a feature which purges spotlight indexes on startup volume from /.Spotlight-V100.
  • Improved search methods when gathering QuarkXPress 6.x cache files. Previously intermittent duplicates were found in the list.

1.0.9 (02-21-2007)

  • Added removal of additional general Adobe cache files @ ~/Library/Caches/Adobe.

1.0.8 (02-15-2007)

  • Added removal of additional font cache files if the client is using an early version of QuarkXPress 7.0.0/1. The early versions of QuarkXPress 7.0.0/1 dump font cache files into the application root. Updates and patches to QuarkXPress 7 (currently version 7.1.0 as of this writing) have modified this behavior, placing caches in a common location at ~/Library/Quark.
  • Removed message box alert(debug) when Quark7 'jaws' folder is found on system.
  • Fixed font cache list box sorting when header is pressed.
  • Moved the About FontNuke menu item from the File menu to the Apple menu.
  • Minor bug fixes.

1.0.7 (01-10-2007)

  • Fixed a bug which caused a NilObjectException error if QuarkXPress 7.0 was not installed on the system.

1.0.6 (01-10-2007)

  • Added removal of QuarkXPress 6.x jaws font cache files.
  • Added removal of QuarkXPress 7.x jaws font cache files.
  • Added removal of /Library/Fonts/font-cache* files.
  • Added feature to reset Extensis Suitcase X1 and Extensis Suitcase Fusion to default settings.

1.0.5 (09-11-2006)

  • Added removal of ATSServer_* files from /var/temp. These are unimportant error log files.
  • Added removal of additional problematic font cache files for Microsoft Entourage. Fixes garbled text.

1.0.4 (05-25-2006)

  • Removed a forgotten embedded expiration date I was once testing. Now no expiration date.

1.0.3 (05-05-2006)

  • Fixed an bug when removing some Adobe font cache files (*.lst).
  • Fixed a bug in Admin-Free mode that could potentially cause FontNuke to stall/crash when sending reboot command on some systems.

1.0.2 (05-05-2006)

  • Added the removal of Microsoft Office font cache files.
  • Added the removal of Adobe font cache (*.lst) files.
  • Minor GUI improvements/fixes.

1.0.1 (05-03-2006)

  • Fixed a bug where the GUI would not update the full list of cache files. The caches were still removed, however just not displayed in the GUI.

1.0.0 (05-02-2006)

  • Initial release.
 

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.