Cocktail: Tom’s Budget Software Pick

Cocktail was one of the original OS X utilities that let users gain access to some of the Mac’s hidden capabilities. It has since evolved into a general-purpose utility that can help you keep your Mac in tip-top shape by giving you easy access to many of OS X’s built-in maintenance tools.

You can also use Cocktail to tweak OS X’s user interface, including changing the number of recent items in the Apple menu; selecting where the scroll bars of a window should appear; and accessing special debugging menus in Safari, Address Book, Disk Utility, and iCal. You can schedule Cocktail to run the built-in maintenance scripts, clear out caches, and much more. If there is a hidden disk, system, file, network, or interface option available in OS X, Cocktail will let you access it.

Cocktail is available in separate versions for Tiger and Leopard, so be sure to select the correct version when you download the trial or purchase the software.

Cocktail is $14.95. A free trial version is available.

See other software choices from Tom’s Budget Software Picks.