Free up disk space — practical guides
Hands-on, honest guides to reclaiming storage on macOS and Windows — from the hidden developer caches most cleaners miss to a full cleanup checklist.
Trust & safety
We built a cleaner score that structurally can't fear-monger
The engineering story of our Report Card: every scareware trick inverted in the scoring math — owning a sensitive file costs nothing, an A+ is reachable free — and each guardrail pinned as a failing test.
Are Mac cleaners safe? An honest answer
The category's honest risks, named — and a six-point checklist that separates real cleaners from fakes. Works on any cleaner, including ours.
The fake "free up disk space" Terminal scam
How the January 2026 malvertising campaign worked, the one rule that defeats it, and calm steps if you pasted the command.
Does your Mac cleaner upload anything?
A ten-minute, vendor-neutral method for watching what any cleaner sends — with free tools, and our own expected result published.
How to watch what any Mac app sends over the network
Activity Monitor, one explained Terminal command, LuLu, Little Snitch, and Wireshark — every connection any app makes, step by step.
What happens to files a Mac cleaner deletes?
A deleted file can only be in three places: the Trash, the app's own quarantine, or gone. How to check each one, in order.
Find the sensitive documents on your Mac
Tax returns, medical records, and scanned IDs pile up in Downloads. Find them with built-in tools — and keep any cleaner away from them.
Pricing & buying
The best Mac cleaner apps in 2026, compared honestly
Who each tool is genuinely right for — including where competitors beat ours — with a source for every claim.
What CleanMyMac actually costs in 2026
Every way to buy it, decoded: what the advertised monthly figure really bills, what the one-time license covers, and the bundle math — dated and sourced.
Subscription or lifetime? The actual math
Break-even arithmetic on annual plans versus one-time licenses — ours included — and five questions to ask before subscribing to any utility.
Cleanup guides
Clear Xcode DerivedData & reclaim Mac storage
DerivedData, simulators, and device support can quietly eat 20–60 GB. Find and safely clear them.
Clear npm, pip, Homebrew & node_modules caches
Package-manager caches and stale node_modules routinely hide 10–80 GB. Safe commands for Mac & Windows.
How to free up disk space on Mac & Windows
The complete 2026 checklist — from Trash and browser caches to duplicates, large files, and system junk.
Reclaim all of it in one click
Vaulith finds these caches automatically, safety-verifies each one, and moves them to the Trash so you can review and undo. It runs 100% on your device — your files never leave your machine, and you can verify that yourself with a network monitor.
Download for macOS & Windows — Free