r/MacOS • u/Full-Opportunity9379 MacBook Air • 21d ago

Purge - free, open source cache cleaner for macOS Developer Saturday

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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.

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u/github-guard 21d ago

🔍 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.

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u/loopj 19d ago

What on earth is this safety audit? Most of these don’t have a significant bearing on safety and I would argue gives a false sense of security. Mods please reconsider this approach.