Countertop Ice makers

Is the one you’re looking at the Opal? If so, I’ve had it for years and love it. (Mine is actually a First Build, but GE bought the rights to sell it, and my sister’s from 2021 is the exact same as mine from 2017.)

The nugget ice is chewable, yes.

We had two countertop ice makers. I can't imagine living without one. The first one I bought at Sam's Club and we used it for camping. It lasted about 4 years. The second one I bought on Amazon and it's about 4 years old now. I wash the basket and scooper often. If I see mold on the lid, I wipe it down with vinegar and rinse rinse rinse.

I follow a TikToker who's GE countertop ice maker was a moldy mess - so I don't think it is the brand, it is the mold. Once it gets started, its difficult to get rid of. She lives in Florida, so I don't know if climate makes a difference.

I have a cheap (relatively speaking, lol) one I got a couple years ago from TaoTronic's - they don't sell it anymore, but I see the exact same thing pop up on TikTok a lot. I run the clean cycle probably once a week, but I add bleach to it. Actually I use Clorox Cleanup, which is a bleach cleaner. I pop the hoses so the machine completley empties. I wipe down the interior with a very clean cloth*. I remove the filter and rinse that well and spray it with the Clorox Cleanup. I let it set for a few minutes to allow contact time for the bleach. Then I put the hoses back on and fill with water (the bleach cleaner is still in the machine. I press the clean cycle - which runs the water through the machine, but doesn't make ice. It runs for several minutes. Then I pop the hoses off again and drain. I wipe it out again with a clean rag and water. I make sure I pour clean water everywhere inside the machine to get any of the cleaner. I fill it, then drain it (no clean cycle). Then I fill it again and run a clean cycle to wash out any remaining bleach.
I say I do this once a week - but sometimes it might go a little longer... but I am a stickler for keeping the machine sanitized.

I wasn't a stickler for decaling it. I was afraid to do that. Finally a few weeks ago, the machine would no longer work. I had shut it down because I had to go out of town for a week. It wouldn't work properly after that. It kept saying it was empty, when it was full of water. So I was finely able to get it to pull some water through - so I drained it. Put a full bottle of DeScale solution in and refilled it with one bottle of water, so the solution was strong. It finally pull that through and, oh yea - the gunk that came out. Not mold - but scale. I let it set for an hour with the descale solution inside the workings of the machine then ran it again until I felt like it was descaled good. I had to hold up the float so it would pull the water through, because it kept saying "empty" since the level was low.
I drained it, filled it to wash it out, and drained it. Then filled again and ran the clean cycle to flush everything out, drained. It takes a few times to get the solution fully rinsed out. I am going to descale more often now. I use a descaling solution, not vinegar. I feel it works so much better.