FontNuke
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 / Snow 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 Snow Leopard 10.6.x
Download
FontNuke-1.16.dmg (download) (3.8MB)
To Do
- Improve dynamic font cache locating to better gather font cache files on systems with multiple versions of QuarkXPress 6/7/8 and/or QuarkXPress Passport. Currently limited to standard installations of QuarkXPress 6/7.
- Explore an integrated runtime during Login/Logout.
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
1.1.6 (09-14-2009)
- Added support for OS X 10.6.x
- Fixed intermittent crashing when attempting to configure/run Admin-Free mode on select versions Mac OS X in certain user environments.
- Improved application auto-quitting for OS X 10.6.x.
- Fixed some UI redraw issues which occurred on select versions of Mac OS X.
Release Notes History

