# DiskWise **See where your Mac's disk actually went — then clear a slice with two taps. It lands in the Trash, and one tap puts it back.** A free, open-source CleanMyMac alternative for macOS. No subscription, no telemetry, ~8 MB. ![stars](https://img.shields.io/github/stars/DreamOfXM/diskwise?style=social) ![platform](https://img.shields.io/badge/macOS-13%2B-000000?logo=apple&logoColor=white) ![languages](https://img.shields.io/badge/UI%20languages-10-blue) ![license](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-Apache%202.0-4c8f52) ![brew](https://img.shields.io/badge/Homebrew-dreamofxm%2Fdiskwise%2Fdiskwise-f9d986?logo=homebrew&logoColor=000) The Overview page in one loop: a rescan grows the ring segment by segment until it settles, its light sweeping round the band, opening a ledger row unfolds that row's detail in place while the ring steps back to a small reference dial, the first tap on an arc arms it and the second moves it to the Trash, and Undo puts it back

The Overview page in one loop: a rescan grows the ring segment by segment until it settles, its light sweeping round the band, opening a ledger row unfolds that row's detail in place while the ring steps back to a small reference dial, the first tap on an arc arms it and the second moves it to the Trash, and Undo puts it back

*Scan → open a row → two taps → undo. Shot against a synthetic home folder, so the numbers on screen are invented — the orange strip says so.* English | [简体中文](./README.zh-CN.md) | [日本語](./README.ja.md) | [한국어](./README.ko.md)

```sh brew install --cask dreamofxm/diskwise/diskwise ``` Or the **Mac App Store** (free, auto-updated by the store): [DiskWise: Storage Cleaner](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6813265402) · [DMG from Releases](https://github.com/DreamOfXM/diskwise/releases/latest), every release with its SHA-256 · ▶ [22-second demo film](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RfXNwNdzFg) A native SwiftUI disk cleaner for `node_modules`, Xcode `DerivedData`, Docker volumes, app caches and uninstall leftovers — and it never truly deletes anything: every removal goes to the Trash and stays undoable until *you* empty it. No Electron, no Python sidecar, no local server, no telemetry, no subscription, and the whole UI in ten languages. A ~8 MB DMG, one file for Apple Silicon and Intel. Want to know what's actually safe to delete first? [docs/safe-to-delete.md](./docs/safe-to-delete.md) — 80 of the usual space hogs on macOS, each with what it is, what deleting it does and what it costs if you were wrong. Generated from the same data the app reads at scan time (the tables are in Chinese; `Sources/DiskCleaner/Resources/safety_db.json` is the machine-readable original). --- ## What's new in v2.1 v2.1 adds an uninstall page. It doesn't just move the `.app` to the Trash — it finds what that app left in your home folder and moves that too. Still one delete path: everything goes to the Trash, everything stays undoable until you empty it. - **One app at a time, both halves in view.** Pick an app on the left; the right side lists the bundle plus every folder in `~/Library` that provably belongs to it, with size, path and what wiping it costs. - **Proven ownership only.** A folder is claimed when it carries the app's bundle ID or a name derived from it. Fuzzy word matching stays where it belongs — the leftover page — so this page never guesses. A folder that two installed apps both claim is dropped for both. - **Checked and unchecked, by consequence.** Caches, containers, saved state, HTTP storages, WebKit data, logs and app scripts start checked: they rebuild on their own. Application Support, Group Containers, Preferences and LaunchAgents start unchecked, each marked as holding data. - **Settings are a choice, not a side effect.** Leave Preferences unchecked and the app keeps its settings and sign-ins; check it and the app opens as if freshly installed — possibly asking you to sign in or re-enter a licence again. - **App Store apps say where they came from.** They carry a line noting a free reinstall from the App Store if you change your mind. - **It won't uninstall itself.** The copy whose bundle ID matches the running DiskWise stays in the list, greyed out and inert; another copy with a different ID can still be removed. - **Home folder only.** No `/Library`, no admin password, no background helper. The bundle and the data you picked move to the Trash as one undoable record. ## Contents - [What's new in v2.1](#whats-new-in-v21) - [Quick start](#quick-start) - [For AI agents](#for-ai-agents) - [Why this exists](#why-this-exists) - [What you get](#what-you-get) - [Screenshots](#screenshots) - [Install](#install) - [Build from source](#build-from-source) - [FAQ](#faq) - [Known limits](#known-limits) - [Roadmap](#roadmap) - [Feedback](#feedback) - [Privacy](#privacy) - [License](#license) ## Quick start The GIF at the top of this page plays this exact order: 1. Open **Overview** — it walks the whole volume and draws the result as one ring, with the ledger beside it. 2. Click any row in that ledger — the folders under it unfold right there, and the ring steps back to a small reference dial. 3. Click the arc you can move **twice**: the first click arms it, the second moves it to the Trash. *Undo* puts it back, and emptying the Trash stays Finder's call. ## For AI agents The direct-download build ships a `diskwise` CLI (the App Store build doesn't), and it doubles as a [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io) server — Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Qoder, OpenCode, Zed, ZCode and Claude Desktop can all reclaim disk space for you. It can't `rm -rf`: the only removal path moves known-safe items to the Trash, every operation is undoable, and risky locations are never touchable. **Put DiskWise in `/Applications` before copying this.** The path below points at that copy; a build left on the Desktop or run straight off the mounted DMG stops working the moment it moves or gets deleted. Claude Code takes one line in Terminal: ```sh claude mcp add diskwise -- "/Applications/DiskWise.app/Contents/MacOS/diskwise" mcp ``` Then just ask your agent *"see what's worth cleaning on my Mac"* — it scans, drafts a plan, shows you the summary, and only moves anything after you agree. The eight above are the ones we verified line by line; any client that can host a local stdio MCP server takes the same two values — this binary's path, and the `mcp` argument. If one of them can't connect, that's on the client: issues and PRs welcome. Details, snippets for the other seven clients and the full safety model: [docs/AGENTS-CLI.md](docs/AGENTS-CLI.md). ## Why this exists A disk cleaner has to read a lot of your machine before it can tell you anything useful. Most of them are closed-source, ship a background daemon, and treat `rm -rf` as a feature. We go the other way: | | DiskWise | |---|---| | Delete path | **One** — `FileManager.trashItem`. Everything lands in the Trash. | | Undo | Yes, per operation, for the whole session. | | Protected paths | Home itself, `~/Library`, and friends can never be removed wholesale. | | Emptying the Trash | Finder does it, never this app. Direct build: the app asks Finder and you confirm once more. App Store build: the sandbox kills that event — measured behaviour, no permission prompt even appears — so the same button opens the Trash and you press ⌘⇧⌫. | | Docker images | Read-only. Virtual disks have no per-image path, so the app points instead of pretending. | | Network | None. No updater, no analytics, no ads. | | Price | Nothing. Every feature and all six skins ship unlocked in this build. | | Runtime | A single `.app`. No Python, no port, no daemon. | The cache list explains each entry it can — what it is, what happens if you delete it, how it comes back. We only write that text for entries we actually understand, so some rows carry it and some don't. WeChat, DingTalk and WeCom are covered, because on many machines those three alone hold tens of gigabytes. It is built for machines that have been used by a developer for a few years — the ones where `node_modules`, Docker volumes, Xcode `DerivedData`, and ten GB of caches quietly took over. ## What you get **See the space** - **Overview** — the volume drawn as one ring: a slice is a block of bytes this pass actually measured, and the slices add up to the whole disk (top folders + everything else counted + not measured + purgeable + free). - The light band sits exactly on the edge of what's been measured so far. - A slice you can move away whole takes two taps: the first arms it, the second sends it to the Trash, and it lets go on its own after 3 seconds. - The button under the ring opens a list, not a delete: one row per spot it can take, each saying what removing it costs, with the harmless ones pre-ticked and the re-downloadable ones left for you to tick. The next screen repeats that list as a confirmation, and only its button moves anything — the result screen after it puts the whole batch back. - There is one list, the ledger beside the ring. Open a row and its detail unfolds right there — the folders under it, the places behind *Other counted*, the volumes behind *Not measured*. - While a row is open the ring steps back to a small reference dial, and *Reveal* and *Dig in* sit on that row. - **Whole-disk sweep** — no scope to guess at. The open-source build walks the whole volume (whitelisted system roots included, other users' homes included); the sandboxed Mac App Store build walks everything its grant can reach and says so on screen. - Either way it covers the volume, not just the tidy corners of your home folder. - **A coverage line that names what it missed** — the overview states how much of your used space it actually measured, and names the rest: system volumes, admin-only folders, and folders blocked on Full Disk Access. - The *Grant access* button only appears when a real read of a protected file says the permission is actually missing, so a machine that already granted it never gets nagged again. - Every number is decimal, so it matches Finder and About This Mac byte for byte. - **The "Other counted" slice adds up** — open that row and every place behind the arc is listed under it, and the last line spells the total out part by part (the rows listed, plus the ones under the 100 MB floor), because "a hundred-plus GB, trust me" is not an explanation. - **Large Files** — top N across the same roots, dev directories skippable. - **Long Untouched** — files you haven't opened in N days, across the same roots. - **Duplicates** — size → partial hash → full hash, grouped, the newest copy in each group locked so you can't nuke the only one. - Copies that live inside a venv / site-packages / DerivedData never enter the comparison and are listed separately: delete one and that environment is short a piece. **Dev machine specials** - **node_modules** — project sweep grouped per project, so you see "these 3 checkouts cost 4.7 GB". - **Docker Usage** — one row per container runtime actually installed (Docker Desktop, OrbStack, Podman, colima), measured as what its virtual disk takes on this disk, with the engine's own figures listed under it. Read-only: it points at where to prune, it never deletes for you. **Clean up** - **App Caches** — a curated knowledge base (system caches, crash dumps, WeChat / DingTalk / WeCom / QQ …). Every entry explains *what it is*, *what happens if you delete it*, and *how to get it back*, with a badge saying what deleting costs — Safe, re-downloadable, or data loss. - **Dev Caches** — the same knowledge base, the tools half of these machines actually fill the disk with: Homebrew, npm / pnpm / yarn, Maven, Gradle, conda, uv, cargo, Ollama models, Xcode archives, DerivedData and every simulator device listed one by one. - **Leftovers** — data orphaned by apps you already uninstalled, matched against the bundle IDs of everything still installed. Under-reports rather than over-deletes. - **Trash** — session stats, undo stack, and an *Empty* button: outside the sandbox it asks Finder to do the emptying, in the App Store build it opens the Trash so you can press ⌘⇧⌫. **Personalize** - **Skins** — 6 themes, and the interesting part is that they are not color swaps: each one changes typeface, corner radius, elevation, motion signature and chart palette. Morning Fog, Graphite, Mint, Polar Night, Aurora Glass, Ink & Paper — all six are in the box. - **Skins are data, not code** — all six live in a single file, [`Sources/DiskCleaner/Resources/skins.json`](Sources/DiskCleaner/Resources/skins.json), which documents its own fields. A seventh theme is one JSON object: edit that file in the browser on GitHub and open a PR — no Xcode, no build, no Swift. ## Screenshots What the button under the ring opens — a list you tick, then a screen that repeats it back before anything moves: | Reclaimable list | Confirm | |---|---| | Reclaimable list: one row per location with its size, a cost badge and a tickbox; the harmless ones arrive ticked, the re-downloadable ones do not

Reclaimable list: one row per location with its size, a cost badge and a tickbox; the harmless ones arrive ticked, the re-downloadable ones do not

Confirm: the same locations listed again under a heading that counts them, with the button that finally moves them to the Trash

| | Overview | Duplicates | |---|---| | Overview: the whole volume as one ring with the ledger beside it

Duplicates: hash-grouped copies with the newest one locked

| | Dev Caches | Leftovers | |---|---| | Dev Caches: Homebrew, npm, Maven, Gradle, simulator devices and more

Leftovers: data orphaned by uninstalled apps

| One page for whole apps — the app itself, plus the folders in your home that provably belong to it. A folder only appears here when it carries the app's bundle ID or a name derived from it: Uninstall Apps: the installed apps on the left, and on the right the selected app's bundle plus the data folders it owns, each row with a cost badge and a tickbox

Uninstall Apps: the installed apps on the left, and on the right the selected app's bundle plus the data folders it owns, each row with a cost badge and a tickbox

The skin store renders a **live thumbnail** of each theme — mini sidebar, ring gauge, rows and buttons, all drawn with that skin's real tokens — so you can see the skeleton before you wear it: Skins: six theme cards, each rendering a live thumbnail of the whole page in that theme

Skins: six theme cards, each rendering a live thumbnail of the whole page in that theme

Six skins, six skeletons. Same page, three of them — Graphite is the dark one: | Graphite | Mint | Polar Night | |---|---|---| | Graphite skin

| The UI ships in ten languages — English, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, Spanish, French, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese — switchable from the language menu on the Skins page, and following the system language by default. Same screens in Chinese: | 空间总览 | 开发缓存 | |---|---| | Overview in Simplified Chinese

| Counts are inflected per language rather than pasted together in English: Russian picks its own form for every number (`1 файл`, `3 файла`, `11 групп`), German and the Romance languages inflect singular/plural, and Japanese and Korean use the measure word those languages actually use. ## Install ### Mac App Store [DiskWise: Storage Cleaner](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6813265402) — macOS 13+, free, install it and start using it; the store takes care of every version after that. Each of those versions has to clear Apple's review first, so the store can trail a GitHub release. If you want the newest build the moment it ships, use Homebrew or the DMG below. ### Homebrew (one command) ```sh brew install --cask dreamofxm/diskwise/diskwise ``` The fully-qualified name is what makes this work from a third-party tap: since Homebrew 6 non-official taps are untrusted by default, and installing by full name trusts just this cask. If you would rather use the short name: ```sh brew tap DreamOfXM/diskwise brew trust --cask dreamofxm/diskwise/diskwise brew install --cask diskwise ``` Tap details and how the pinned checksum gets bumped: [DreamOfXM/homebrew-diskwise](https://github.com/DreamOfXM/homebrew-diskwise). Homebrew installs the same file the Releases page carries. From v1.7 it is signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple, so it opens on a double-click and never reaches that step. Releases before v1.7 were built ad-hoc, so macOS stops the first launch once and you approve it in **System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway** (on macOS 13–14, right-click → Open does the same job). Getting it from the **Mac App Store** skips that step entirely. ### DMG 1. Download `DiskWise-[-universal].dmg` from [Releases](https://github.com/DreamOfXM/diskwise/releases). 2. Open it and drag **DiskWise.app** to *Applications*. 3. Double-click it. From v1.7 that just works — the app is Developer ID signed and notarized. On a pre-v1.7 build the first launch gets stopped once; approve it in **System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway** and the app opens normally from then on (on macOS 13–14, right-click → Open works instead; Sequoia removed that shortcut). Releases built with `ARCH=universal` are named `…-universal.dmg` and carry both the Apple Silicon and Intel slices in one file; the Apple Silicon-only ones are named `DiskWise-.dmg`. Checksums are published next to each release asset, and the cask pins the same SHA-256. ## Build from source You need the Xcode Command Line Tools — **not** full Xcode. ```bash swift build # debug swift run SelfTest # all green is the precondition for shipping swift run DiskCleaner # run the app bash build_app/build.sh # localize check → build → self-test → .app → sign → dist/*.dmg + SHA256 ``` `build.sh` refuses to produce a package if any of the three gates fails: missing translations, a failing self-test, or an unpacked resource. The translation gate parses the Swift sources and `skins.json` itself, so it catches a user-visible string that was never wrapped in `L(…)` as well as a missing translation — a language can't silently ship half-translated. Contributing? Start with [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md), then [docs/ARCHITECTURE.md](docs/ARCHITECTURE.md) and [docs/DESIGN.md](docs/DESIGN.md) — both encode rules that were learned the expensive way. Three PRs need no Swift at all: a [cache knowledge base](CONTRIBUTING.md#the-easiest-useful-contribution-cache-knowledge-base) entry, a [skin](CONTRIBUTING.md#skins), or a [translation](CONTRIBUTING.md#translations). ## FAQ **Is this a CleanMyMac alternative?** In the sense that it covers the same ground — caches, large files, duplicates, uninstall leftovers, Docker usage — with the source on this page and no subscription. It deliberately does *less* than a suite: no malware scan, no VPN, no mail cleanup, no "speed booster", because those are different products with different risks. **Can it delete something I actually need?** Anything it removes lands in the Trash, and the session keeps an undo stack. Home itself and `~/Library` can never be removed wholesale. Emptying the Trash is Finder's job, so macOS asks you one more time before space is really gone. **Is it safe to delete `node_modules`, `DerivedData`, caches?** `node_modules` comes back with `npm install`, `DerivedData` with the next Xcode build, and caches with the next run of the tool that wrote them. DiskWise states that per entry rather than assuming you know it — each cache row says what it is, what happens if you delete it, and how to get it back. **Does it send data anywhere?** No. No updater, no analytics, no account, no ads — the app has no network access at all, which is also why feedback goes through GitHub or email below. **What about WeChat / DingTalk / WeCom caches?** They're in the cache knowledge base, because on a Chinese developer's Mac those are often the single biggest consumers. That's why Simplified and Traditional Chinese are both first-class here rather than a translation bolted onto an English UI. **Intel Mac?** From v1.3 on, every published DMG is built with `ARCH=universal` and carries both the arm64 and x86_64 slices in one file, so the same download works on Apple Silicon and Intel. Releases before v1.3 shipped an arm64-only file (`DiskWise-.dmg`, no `-universal` in the name); Intel users on those versions need to build from source instead (it takes a minute and needs no Xcode). `bash build_app/build.sh` still defaults to Apple Silicon; pass `ARCH=universal` to get both. **Why does macOS complain on first launch?** From v1.7 it doesn't: every release from that version onward is signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple, so Gatekeeper lets it open. The ad-hoc builds before it get stopped once — approve it in **System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway** and it launches normally afterwards; on macOS 13–14 right-click → Open does the same job, a shortcut Sequoia removed. The App Store build never gets stopped. ## Known limits - **The system area is counted, not cleaned.** Rows under `/Library`, `/opt` or `/private` come up with a *System area* badge and a locked checkbox: either only an admin can write there, or the files belong to Homebrew / Xcode, whose own cleanup commands do a better job. - **Large `node_modules` sweeps are slow** and don't stream results yet. - **It will not find every orphan.** Leftover detection is deliberately conservative. ## Roadmap - [ ] Streaming snapshots for slow scans - [ ] More cache knowledge base entries (open a PR — this is the easiest way to contribute) ## Feedback The app has no network access, so there is no built-in "send feedback" button — pick a channel: | Channel | Where | |---|---| | Email | [hnyxgxm2009@163.com](mailto:hnyxgxm2009@163.com) | | GitHub | [Open an issue](https://github.com/DreamOfXM/diskwise/issues) — English or Chinese is fine | | Discussions | [Questions, ideas, show-and-tell](https://github.com/DreamOfXM/diskwise/discussions) | Email and issues also live in-app: the **Feedback** page at the bottom of the sidebar, with copy buttons for every address. If it cleared space you didn't know you had, [starring the repo](https://github.com/DreamOfXM/diskwise) is genuinely how the next person finds it — there is no marketing budget behind this project, so GitHub search and awesome-list traffic are what decide whether anyone sees it at all. ## Privacy DiskWise has no network access and collects nothing — every scan runs locally on your Mac. Full policy: [docs/PRIVACY.md](docs/PRIVACY.md). ## License Apache License 2.0 — see [LICENSE](LICENSE).