Just wanted to share a little "behind the scenes" pain from the OptiClear launch. We all know the Apple App Store review process can be a rollercoaster, and I definitely hit a loop.
I had built this sweet "Invite a Friend" feature. The logic was simple: generate a code, share it with a friend, and both of you earn free premium days. A classic, organic growth loop, right?
Well, Apple hit me with a rejection. Apparently, unlocking premium features outside of their standard In-App Purchase flow (even as a reward) is a big no-no.
If you look at the top Mac cleaning utilities today, they all share a similar design language: they look like a 2005 spaceship dashboard.
They have spinning radars, giant red warning signs flashing "YOUR MAC IS IN DANGER", and custom UI elements that look nothing like macOS. It s designed to create panic and force a purchase.
When I started building OptiClear, I decided to take the exact opposite approach. I wanted the UI to be almost... boring.
We ve all been there: You check your storage, and there s a massive yellow bar labeled 'Other' or 'System Data' taking up 50GB+.
In OptiClear, I built the Large & Aging Files analyzer specifically to hunt these down. It's often forgotten .dmg installers from 2 years ago or massive log files that serve no purpose.
Yesterday, a user told me they found 12GB of old screen recordings they forgot they ever made!
Question for the community: What was the weirdest or largest 'forgotten' file you ever found while cleaning your drive?
Let s talk about a dirty secret in software development: Apps that refuse to leave when you delete them.
You drag an app to the Trash, empty it, and you think you re done. But months later, you find 2GB of hidden cache files, random Launch Daemons, and preference files still lurking deep in your ~/Library folder.
Why is this considered normal? Why don't apps clean up after themselves?
OptiClear is officially live, and while the current cleanup tools are saving tons of GBs, I m already looking at the roadmap for the next big update. I want to build what you actually need.
Which of these features would make your Mac life easier?
1 Duplicate Finder: Find and remove those annoying identical files & photos. 2 Uninstaller Improvements: A more powerful way to wipe every trace of deleted apps. 3 Cloud Storage Cleaner: Scanning and managing large files in iCloud/Google Drive. 4 Performance Monitor: A real-time dashboard for RAM and CPU health.
Lately, it feels like every single app update comes with a forced "AI-powered" feature. The other day, I saw an AI integration for a basic calculator app. Are we losing our minds?
When I was building OptiClear (a Mac storage cleaner), I got a lot of "advice" from other makers: "You should add an AI smart-cleaner!" "Use an LLM to analyze the junk files!"
Following up on my "deleted feature" post that went viral in the newsletter (thanks for the love! ), I wanted to get brutally honest about the numbers.
I just hit $81.72 in total sales for OptiClear this week. But when I checked my "Proceeds" tab, I saw $37.42.
If you look at the top utility apps in the Mac ecosystem today, you'll notice a scary trend: they all want your data.
To clean your Mac, an app inherently needs deep disk access. It scans your caches, your logs, your old downloads. But why do these massive corporate apps need to send "anonymous usage telemetry" back to their servers? Why do they need to know what you are cleaning?
The Mac utility market is notoriously crowded. If you search for "Mac cleaner," you'll see multi-million dollar companies dominating the ads and the first page of Google. As a solo indie maker building OptiClear, I realized I couldn't win that war.
So, I decided to play a different game: Programmatic SEO (pSEO).
Instead of fighting for broad keywords, I targeted the specific pain points of specific users. Here is the exact playbook I am currently executing:
We all know that feeling when the UI starts lagging just a tiny bit, or apps take 2 seconds longer to open.
Most of the time, it's not the processor it's the disk struggling with thousands of tiny cache files and logs. I built OptiClear to be a 'one-click refresh' for this exact reason.
Aside from cleaning your disk, what s your go-to trick to bring that "New Mac" speed back?
A full restart?
PRAM / SMC reset?
Or just finally closing those 50+ Chrome tabs you ve been ignoring?
