A free, open source MacOS utility that finds the caches and forgotten files eating your disk and clears them to the trash. Nothing leaves the trash.
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Maker
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Hey, I'm Jithin. I'm a designer, and I built Purge.
I don't come from a dev background, I design products, and I use AI-assisted tools to actually build them. Purge started because my Mac kept filling up with cache and junk, and every cleaner I tried felt like it was designed to make me nervous: scary warnings, permanent delete by default, unclear about what it was actually touching.
So I designed the one I wanted. Calm by default. Everything goes to Trash first, nothing is ever gone for good. An allowlist decides what's even eligible to touch, and the whole thing is open source, so if you don't trust me, you can just read the code instead.
That tension, between building something that needs to be technically careful and designing something that feels calm to use, was the actual interesting part of this project for me.
It's free and open source, and happy to answer anything, about the product, the design decisions, or the AI-assisted build process.
Happy building!
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Finally gave this a spin on my old MacBook and reclaimed almost 40GB without anything sketchy leaving the trash. The fact that it's open source and clearly shows what it's flagging before deletion is a really nice touch.
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Maker
@aysunuraslqpiw 40GB is a good haul. The transparency part matters to me too, everything it flags comes from an allowlist you can read in the repo, and it's all open source so you can check exactly what it touches before anything moves. Thanks for giving it a run!
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finally something that just puts stuff in the trash instead of nuking it forever, honestly that alone sold me on downloading it
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Maker
@boransand97562 Yeah, that was the whole reason I built it this way. Trash by default means nothing is gone until you empty it, so there's always an undo. Glad it landed for you.
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Scanned my Mac and found a ton of old Xcode caches I had completely forgotten about. Love that it sends everything to the trash instead of nuking it permanently.
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Maker
@abdulsamet2lqg Xcode caches are one of the worst offenders, they pile up fast and you rarely think to clear them. Glad the trash-first approach clicked for you. That's the whole idea: nothing's gone until you empty it, so there's always a way back. Thanks for giving it a scan!
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Cleared out 12 gigs of junk I'd been ignoring for months. Love that it just sends stuff to the trash instead of nuking it, feels way safer than the usual "deep clean" tools.
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Maker
@mervekatn2mai The "safer than deep clean tools" bit is exactly what I was going for. Those tools tend to delete first and hope you didn't need it, and Purge just moves things to the trash so you always have a way back. It also only touches an allowlist you can read in the repo, nothing off that list. Thanks!
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I've been looking for something like this for so long! I'll give ita try but I'm glad you guys made a tool that clarifies what my cleaning tools are actually deleting (without me having to manually implement checks and balances for what it can delete).
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Finally gave this a spin on my old MacBook and reclaimed almost 40GB without anything sketchy leaving the trash. The fact that it's open source and clearly shows what it's flagging before deletion is a really nice touch.
@aysunuraslqpiw 40GB is a good haul. The transparency part matters to me too, everything it flags comes from an allowlist you can read in the repo, and it's all open source so you can check exactly what it touches before anything moves. Thanks for giving it a run!
finally something that just puts stuff in the trash instead of nuking it forever, honestly that alone sold me on downloading it
@boransand97562 Yeah, that was the whole reason I built it this way. Trash by default means nothing is gone until you empty it, so there's always an undo. Glad it landed for you.
Scanned my Mac and found a ton of old Xcode caches I had completely forgotten about. Love that it sends everything to the trash instead of nuking it permanently.
@abdulsamet2lqg Xcode caches are one of the worst offenders, they pile up fast and you rarely think to clear them. Glad the trash-first approach clicked for you. That's the whole idea: nothing's gone until you empty it, so there's always a way back. Thanks for giving it a scan!
Cleared out 12 gigs of junk I'd been ignoring for months. Love that it just sends stuff to the trash instead of nuking it, feels way safer than the usual "deep clean" tools.
@mervekatn2mai The "safer than deep clean tools" bit is exactly what I was going for. Those tools tend to delete first and hope you didn't need it, and Purge just moves things to the trash so you always have a way back. It also only touches an allowlist you can read in the repo, nothing off that list. Thanks!
I've been looking for something like this for so long! I'll give ita try but I'm glad you guys made a tool that clarifies what my cleaning tools are actually deleting (without me having to manually implement checks and balances for what it can delete).