What virus removal tool will get rid of PPminer

I used Clean My Mac app, and it found that PPminer is installed on my computer, but it said it couldn't get rid of it.


MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Mar 26, 2025 7:32 AM

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Mar 27, 2025 2:25 AM in response to kathleenfromsolon

Not popular and heavy handed approach


CleanMyMac


For Apple Silicon computer >> Use Disk Utility to erase a Mac with Apple silicon.


For Apple Intel computers >>   Use Disk Utility to erase an Intel-based Mac followed by How to reinstall macOS


Always make a Time Machine Backup  before  proceeding 


If going this route - I suggest Not using Startup Assist to migrate everything back.


This will probably Re-Introduce ( BrickMyMac ) back into the Operating System 



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Mar 26, 2025 4:54 PM in response to leroydouglas

Yes, I am. For some reason, my MacBook Air is running out of storage due to apps and iCloud Drive. I can't figure out why or what is using up all of those GBs. My apps are taking up 346 GB, and I hardly have any apps that I use. And the iCloud storage is supposedly taking up 650 GBs. In desperation, I tried CleanMyMac, and it got rid of a teeny tiny amount of storage (less than 1GB), but it found that PPMiner virus. I messaged the company that makes CMM and told them what happened. They said they were going to give me another version of the app that would get rid of the virus, and supposedly, it did. But my storage problem remains.

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Mar 26, 2025 4:58 PM in response to kathleenfromsolon

Do not use third party apps that claim to protect, clean, manage, boost performance, etc. These apps use system resources while providing no benefit. And they may cause problems. Uninstall CleanMyMac and the third party anti virus app they had you install.

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Mar 26, 2025 5:27 PM in response to kathleenfromsolon

I’d not particularly expect PPminer here; that’s an old cryptominer and roughly six years old. It shows up by a very busy mshelper process.


Easy enough to check for it, though.


There are three files involved:

~/Library/Application Support/pplauncher/pplauncher
/tmp/mshelper/mshelper
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.pplauncher.plist


Though this also wouldn’t be the first false positive from an add-on tool, either.


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What virus removal tool will get rid of PPminer

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