mac-clean

mac-clean is a disk cleanup tool for macOS that scans your Mac for wasted space and lets you review and approve every single deletion yourself, rather than deciding automatically what to remove. It runs as a small local web server with a browser based interface, and it has no runtime dependencies beyond the built in tools that come with Node.js, so the entire codebase is small enough for a technical user to read through and verify what it actually does.

The tool never deletes files during scanning. Scanning is strictly read only and only measures how much space things are using. Once the scan finishes, results are grouped into categories like Trash, temporary files, browser caches, developer tool caches, old downloads, large files, installed applications, and duplicate files, each labeled with a rough risk level so a user can tell at a glance what is safe to remove versus what needs a closer look. When you do choose files to remove, the default action moves them to the macOS Trash so mistakes can still be recovered, and a separate, more heavily confirmed action is required to delete something permanently. The tool also refuses to touch any file path that did not come from its own scan results, and it hard blocks system folders like System, usr, and bin from ever being targeted.

Everything runs locally: the server binds only to your own machine with a per session security token, makes no outside network calls, and sends no telemetry anywhere. Installation is done through npm, either linking the tool as a global command or running it directly from the project folder. It requires Node.js 18 or newer and only works on macOS. The project is licensed under MIT.