MacSift

A transparent disk cleaner for macOS Tahoe.

See exactly what's taking up space, group it by the app that owns it, and move everything to the Trash — never permanent deletion.

Website · Download v0.1.0 · Release notes

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Why another disk cleaner?

Commercial Mac cleaners all have the same problem: you press a big button and they "clean" a few gigabytes you never see. You trust them by default. If anything important disappears, it's already gone.

MacSift is the opposite:

• Everything you're about to delete is listed, grouped, and labeled.
• Selected items go to the Trash, not rm -rf. Finder restores anything until you empty it.
• Dry run is on by default for first-time users.
• Destructive actions require an explicit confirmation; deletions above 10 GB show an extra warning.
• Zero network calls. Zero telemetry. 55 tests, all green.

Install

Option A — Download the release

1. Download MacSift.zip (1.5 MB, Apple Silicon).
2. Unzip and drag MacSift.app to /Applications.
3. First launch: right-click the app → Open → confirm. Gatekeeper asks because the app is ad-hoc signed, not notarized (no paid Apple Developer account). Every launch after the first is silent.
4. Grant Full Disk Access in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access.

Option B — Build from source

Same binary, verified from the source tree.

git clone https://github.com/Lcharvol/MacSift.git
cd MacSift
./build-app.sh && open MacSift.app

The build script produces a signed .app bundle in one step. macOS 26 (Tahoe), Apple Silicon, and the Xcode 26 command-line tools are required.

What it does

• Scans ~/Library/Caches, ~/Library/Logs, ~/Library/Application Support, /tmp, /private/var/log, and your entire home directory for large files.
• Detects Time Machine local snapshots and iOS device backups (device name + date read from Info.plist).
• Classifies every file into one of eleven categories: Caches · Logs · Temporary Files · Unused App Data · Large Files · Time Machine Snapshots · iOS Backups · Xcode Junk · Dev Caches · Old Downloads · Mail Attachments.
• Groups by owning app. ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/* — 15,000 files — shows up as a single Safari row. One decision, not fifteen thousand.
• Orphan detection — Application Support folders are only flagged as .appData if their owning app is no longer installed in /Applications.
• Inspector panel with Reveal in Finder, Quick Look, Copy Path, and a live preview of the top 5 largest files in any selected group.
• Moves to Trash via FileManager.trashItem. Never a permanent delete.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
⌘R	Start / restart scan
⌘.	Cancel scan
⌘A	Select all safe items
⌘⇧A	Deselect all
Esc	Dismiss cleaning preview

Drop any folder on the window to scan just that folder.

Safety at the engine level

• /System, /usr, /bin, /sbin are hard-blocked in CleaningEngine before any delete call — not just hidden in the UI.
• Application Support folders that belong to still-installed apps are never surfaced.
• Dry run is on by default for new installs (AppState.init seeds it to true).
• The cleaning flow can't be triggered without passing through CleaningPreviewView and an explicit confirmation alert.
• Selection is stored as a Set<String> of SHA-256 file-id hashes so that a re-scan preserves your selection of files that still exist — and drops selections whose files are gone.

If you'd rather verify than trust, the engine is ~120 lines: MacSift/Services/CleaningEngine.swift.

Architecture

Strict MVVM. Pure SwiftPM project — no .xcodeproj, no Xcode GUI needed.

MacSift/
├── App/          # MacSiftApp @main, AppState
├── Models/       # FileCategory, ScannedFile, ScanResult, FileGroup — all Sendable value types
├── Services/     # DiskScanner, CategoryClassifier, FileGrouper, CleaningEngine,
│                   TimeMachineService, ExclusionManager
├── ViewModels/   # ScanViewModel, CleaningViewModel — @MainActor, @Published
├── Views/        # SwiftUI views. Prefer plain values over VM observation.
└── Utilities/    # FileSize+Formatting, FileDescriptions, BundleNames, Permissions

The detailed conventions, performance rules, and debugging lessons are in CLAUDE.md — read that before touching the file list or the scanner.

Development

swift build                              # type-check
swift test                               # 55 tests across 10 suites
swift test --filter FileGrouper          # run one suite
./build-app.sh                           # build the .app bundle
./build-app.sh release                   # release-optimized build

GitHub Actions runs swift test on every push to main (see .github/workflows/test.yml).

Known limitations

• Apple Silicon only. No Intel build in the current release.
• Gatekeeper asks once on first launch because the app is ad-hoc signed rather than notarized — distributing a notarized binary requires a paid Apple Developer account. Building from source (Option B) is the workaround if you'd rather not trust a pre-built binary.
• Dock icon renders slightly smaller than first-party Tahoe apps because legacy .icns icons aren't the new Icon Composer asset format.
• Time Machine snapshot deletion can require admin privileges. If tmutil deletelocalsnapshots fails, the cleaning report shows the exact sudo command to run in Terminal.

Uninstall

MacSift is a regular .app bundle with no installer and no privileged helper. To remove it completely:

# Quit the app, then:
rm -rf /Applications/MacSift.app

# Clean up persisted preferences + exclusion list
defaults delete com.macsift.app

You can also use the Reset all settings button in the in-app Settings window — it wipes the same keys without touching the disk.

The app never writes outside its own UserDefaults domain (no keychain entries, no LaunchAgents, no ~/Library/Application Support/MacSift folder). Nothing else to clean.

License

No explicit license — all rights reserved by the author. If you want to use, fork, or redistribute this code, open an issue and let's talk.