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Safety and Privacy

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Nat edited this page Jul 17, 2026 · 1 revision

CleanMyMac CLI is designed to make cleanup transparent and predictable.

You should be able to understand what was detected, review the selected items, and stay in control before anything is removed.

Scan and review first

Cleanup commands scan your Mac and show the detected items before deletion.

For clean and purge, you can:

  • Inspect detected categories and paths
  • Select or deselect individual items
  • Review the total amount of data selected
  • Confirm the cleanup before files are removed

Nothing is deleted until you confirm the selected items.

Protected system locations

CleanMyMac CLI excludes protected system locations from cleanup.

Its detection logic is based on cleanup rules shared with CleanMyMac and is designed to target removable caches, logs, build artifacts, dependencies, and other generated files rather than personal documents or project source code.

Important

Always review the selected paths before confirming cleanup, especially when scanning a custom directory.

Project artifact protection

The purge command finds generated artifacts inside development projects, including dependencies, virtual environments, and build directories.

To reduce the risk of removing artifacts from an active project:

  • Artifacts older than seven days are preselected
  • Newer artifacts remain visible but unchecked
  • Results are grouped by project
  • Project source code is not targeted

You can inspect and change the selection before confirming.

Analyze safely

Browsing storage with analyze does not modify your files.

cleanmymac analyze

You can navigate through directories and reveal items in Finder without removing anything.

Deleting an item from the analyzer requires an explicit selection and confirmation.

Protect important paths

Add a file or folder to the ignore list when it should never appear in scan results:

cleanmymac ignore add ~/Projects/important-project

Review protected paths:

cleanmymac ignore list

Remove a path from the ignore list:

cleanmymac ignore remove ~/Projects/important-project

Ignored paths remain excluded from clean, purge, and analyze until you remove them from the list.

Using --force

Supported cleanup commands can be run with the --force option:

cleanmymac clean --force
cleanmymac purge --force

Warning

--force skips interactive confirmation and removes detected items immediately.

Run the command without --force first, inspect what it detects, and use this option only when you understand what will be removed.

Privacy

CleanMyMac CLI processes cleanup and storage information locally on your Mac.

  • Your source code is not uploaded
  • Your personal files are not uploaded
  • Cleanup decisions remain on your device
  • Analytics can be disabled in the configuration menu

Open the configuration menu:

cleanmymac config

For complete information about data processing, see the CleanMyMac Privacy Policy.

Reporting a security issue

Please do not disclose security vulnerabilities through public GitHub Issues, Discussions, or pull requests.

Report potential vulnerabilities privately by emailing:

security@macpaw.com

Include the following information when possible:

  • CleanMyMac CLI version
  • macOS version
  • Steps required to reproduce the issue
  • Relevant configuration
  • Expected and actual behavior
  • Potential security impact
  • Proof of concept, logs, or screenshots without sensitive information

Check the installed version with:

cleanmymac --version

Read the complete Security Policy.

When something looks wrong

Stop before confirming the cleanup and share the example with the team.

Next steps

Clone this wiki locally