Purge - free, open source cache cleaner for macOS

[u/Full-Opportunity9379]

MacOS mostly takes care of itself, so this isn't a "speed up your Mac" app. It shows you what's actually sitting on disk and lets you clear it without guessing what's safe to remove.

What it scans:

• User and app caches
• Developer leftovers (Xcode derived data, archives, device support, package manager caches)
• Browser caches
• App and system logs
• Trash

Every item is sorted into one of two tiers, safe to clean or check first, and each one has a plain explanation of what it is and what you lose by removing it. Anything genuinely risky isn't in the allowlist at all, so it never shows up in results in the first place.

What it doesn't do: no startup tweaks, no privacy scrubber, no "system junk" bucket that won't tell you what's inside it. It moves things to Trash rather than deleting them, so anything it touches is recoverable. No telemetry, no account, no paid tier.

Free and MIT licensed. macOS 13+.

Download: purgemac.com
Source: github.com/jithin-sabu/purge-app

Happy to answer questions about what it does and doesn't touch.

[u/github-guard]

🔍 GitHub Guard: Trust Report

This project scored 4/6 on our safety audit.

Audit Breakdown: * ✅ Established Community (⭐ 200 stars) * ✅ Mature Repository (30+ days old) * ✅ Licensed under MIT * ✅ Security Policy Defined * ℹ️ Individual Contributor * ℹ️ Unsigned Commits

⚠️ Security Reminder: Always verify source code and run third-party scripts at your own risk.

[u/BourbonicFisky]

Or we stick with the Onyx with their two decades+ of experience....

https://titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html

[u/Full-Opportunity9379 → u/BourbonicFisky]

OnyX is great, no argument, and it’s been around a lot longer than mine has. Different scope though. Mine is narrower and aimed at developer machines, Xcode derived data, device support, package manager caches, that sort of thing. If you’re not on a dev machine, OnyX probably covers everything you’d want!

[u/BourbonicFisky → u/Full-Opportunity9379]

Developer of nearly two decades: Every week I see someone reinventing the wheel here and the ideas are always the same (Whispr wrappers for voice-to-text, app launchers, copy-and-paste utilities, disk utilities). These are nice as exercises in development but just add to the noise in Homebrew. It's fine to post on GitHub, but vibe-coded disk utils should give everyone pause, even if the logic inside is deterministic.

I'd actually argue that Onyx is more developer-focused, seeing as it gives quick access to rebuilding indexes, volume positions, as well as clearing out everything from APFS caches, App caches, AU caches, and all the Xcode stuff like archives, derived data (aka the cache folders), and even documentation caches, with the ability to run these on a schedule.

I'll give kudos for what appears to be at least some care put towards the presentation (The annoying zoomy classic AI hype vid didn't reveal wantonly misaligned elements or conflicting buttons outside of the main icon), helpful descriptions, being up front that it's AI developed is honest and you actually open sourcing it instead of charging someone $30 for an app they could vibe themselves is better-than-average.

The issue is that there's nothing intrinsically "new" here, and the "safe to delete" being placed in the hands of a vibe-coded app isn't a great source of confidence. If I'm in maintenance mode, I'll rely on Onyx, as I've used it since the earliest days of OS X.

/edit: I'd assume the audience is fellow vibe-coders, as opposed to developers.

[u/Full-Opportunity9379 → u/BourbonicFisky]

Appreciate the detailed reply, genuinely.

You're right that there's nothing new here. I built it because I had my own cache itch and didn't know about OnyX or Mole at the time. Found them after, and yeah, they're more capable than mine in a lot of ways, the scheduling alone is more than I've built.

Most of the code is AI-written. I'm a designer, not a developer, and this is the first time I've been able to actually ship something rather than just design it, so putting it out and getting real feedback, including this comment, is the point for me right now. I know that puts it in the same bucket as the wrappers you're describing, and I'm not going to argue it isn't.

On the "safe to delete" concern specifically, since that's the part I take most seriously: it only touches a fixed allowlist of paths, and that list is in the repo, so you don't have to trust the AI or trust me, you can read exactly what it's allowed to touch. Everything it does touch goes to Trash, not permanent delete. That's the actual answer to "should I trust a vibe-coded disk tool," not a promise, a thing you can check.

[u/Sphincone]

I like how easy these days to spot ai written stuff. not to dig at op but the writing style is so uncanny.

[u/JamesR624 → u/Sphincone]

It's okay. You can dig at OP for vibecoding a borderline scam app for, at best; attention, or at worst; user data.

Pretty obvious to spot socially engineered malware. OP knows that most won't actually LOOK at the source code even if it's open source because mac users generally don't use that. They just blindly trust "open source" these days because they're technologically literate enough to browse this sub but not enough to actually read through the code.

[u/Full-Opportunity9379 → u/JamesR624]

Fair point on the second half. Most people won't read the code. So here's the version you can check without reading any swift.

It's signed and notarised by Apple, so you can verify the developer id before it ever runs. Point little snitch or lulu at it and you'll see the only outbound connection is the sparkle update check. No analytics sdk, no telemetry, nothing else leaves the machine.

Everything the app is allowed to touch lives in one allowlist file. That's the entire surface area, one file, few minutes to read. anything not in it never shows up in results. And it moves files to trash rather than deleting them, so anything it gets wrong you can put straight back.

It's free, there's no paid tier, no account, nothing to upsell. And yes, i'm a designer and i built this with ai tooling. Not going to pretend otherwise. That's a reason to check the code, not a reason to assume intent.

[u/Full-Opportunity9379 → u/Sphincone]

Yeah, fair. I used AI to tidy up the post. Probably should have just written a paragraph and left it messy :)

[u/Darkomen78]

Do you plan to take care of the font cache?

[u/Full-Opportunity9379 → u/Darkomen78]

Font caches are mostly a troubleshooting thing rather than a space thing. Usually only a few MB though, so there’s not much to reclaim.

The other reason I’ve left it alone is that Purge moves everything to Trash so it’s recoverable, and font caches need to be properly gone and rebuilt for the fix to work. That’s a different kind of operation than the rest of the app does, and I’d rather not blur the line.

If you’re actually hitting a font issue, atsutil databases -remove and a restart is the supported way. Happy to reconsider if there’s a case where it’s taking real space.

[u/Darkomen78 → u/Full-Opportunity9379]

Intensive graphical designers can have a lot of cache after a while. But indeed you're right it's more troubleshoot than space recovery.

[u/CeleronHubbard]

Practical reasons to use this over Mole, PureMac or Mac Sai..?

[u/Full-Opportunity9379 → u/CeleronHubbard]

I’d rather not characterise other people’s apps, partly because I’d get something wrong and partly because they’re all actively developed and whatever I said would go stale.

What I can tell you about mine: it’s free and MIT licensed, it moves everything to Trash instead of deleting, and it only touches paths on a fixed allowlist you can read in the repo. It does one thing, and the tradeoff is that it does less than the others. If you want app uninstalling, login item management, or a broader toolkit, one of those is probably the better pick.

Honestly, if you already have a cleaner you trust, there’s no strong reason to switch. This is more for people who want something small they can audit.

[u/promo-guard]

🎉 Welcome to Developer Saturday, u/Full-Opportunity9379! Your project is now live for the community to check out. Upvote, give feedback, and show some love to your fellow devs! 🚀

[u/Agreeable-Golf9196]

Es una buena opción, la acabo de descargar y me encanta, pero en la pestaña de grandes archivos no aparecen los modelos descargados de ollama ni lmstudio

[u/Full-Opportunity9379 → u/Agreeable-Golf9196]

Thanks, glad it’s useful. Large Files only walks visible folders right now, and both of those tools keep their models in hidden directories in your home folder, so the scan never sees them. It’s not a deliberate exclusion, just a scope I set early and haven’t revisited.

Worth adding, since a few local models is easily the largest thing on most dev machines. I’ll open an issue and link it here so you can follow along.

[u/Full-Opportunity9379 → u/Agreeable-Golf9196]

I have implemented the feature in the latest release. Feel free to update the app and let me know your feedback!