How does MacKitty compare to commercial subscription cleaners?

Commercial cleaners are typically 300+ MB utilities that install background launch daemons, phone home with telemetry, and demand recurring monthly fees. MacKitty is 100% pure Swift, consumes zero CPU in the background, has zero telemetry, and is free of subscription nag screens.

100% Native Swift · Apple Silicon & Intel Universal

Allow Kitty to take care of your Mac.

Q: Does MacKitty ever delete my personal documents, photos, or desktop files?

Never. No personal data or files are ever deleted. MacKitty enforces an absolute strict boundary: it inspects solely regenerable build directories (like ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData), package manager caches, and system log residue. Your Documents, Desktop, Pictures, and iCloud folders are never touched.

Kitty can do everything. Kitty can save you.
A featherweight macOS disk companion that isolates bloated developer caches, stale build artifacts, and system clutter — safely, with zero personal file deletions.

Download Direct (.dmg)

No personal data or files are ever deleted. Dry-run safety verified.

MacKitty

Macintosh HD · 72% used

Your Mac is filling up.

138.4 GB free of 494.4 GB. A scan finds caches, logs and leftovers that are safe to remove.

Nothing is removed without your review

Storage 494.4 GB

72%

used

Run a scan to see what's reclaimable.

CPU

28%load

Memory

12.35 GBused

Battery

84%

On Battery

Network

Online

Local IP192.168.1.24

Space reclaimed per cleanup

Σ Lifetime

Total reclaimed 42.06 GB

Cleanups run 7

Last cleanup 2 days ago

0 files inspected

~/Library/Caches

LocationSize

6 of 6 selected

34.88 GB

Cleanup complete

34.88 GB reclaimed

6 areas cleaned on Macintosh HD

Technical Transparency

Built for developers and Mac power users who hate mystery bloatware.

Many Mac cleaners are heavy, subscription-driven and vague about what they delete. MacKitty is a small native Swift app that shows you exactly what it touches. Here is what happens under the hood.

Reproducible Ephemeral Targets

› ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData — Intermediate object files, symbol indexes, and module caches that Xcode recreates automatically upon compilation.
› ~/Library/Caches — Safari, Chrome, Firefox and other app caches that apps rebuild on demand. Apple's own caches (iCloud, CloudKit) and caches of running apps are always skipped.
› ~/.npm — Cached npm package tarballs that are re-downloaded when needed.
› ~/Library/Logs — Old app logs and crash/diagnostic reports.

Strict Inviolable Boundaries

✕ ~/Documents, ~/Desktop, ~/Downloads — Zero personal documents, photos, or desktop files are ever targeted.
✕ .git/ repositories — Uncommitted source code, branches, stashes, and project files are strictly excluded from all scan routines.
✕ Keychain & Browser sessions — Passwords, saved logins, cookies, and tokens are never read or removed; only browser cache folders are cleaned.
✕ System & Signed Binaries — Read-only Apple system partitions (macOS Sealed System Volume) remain completely untouched.

# What a MacKitty scan reports. Scans only measure; nothing is removed.
[OK] ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData ........... 18.40 GB (rebuildable)
[OK] ~/Library/Caches (other apps) .................... 6.20 GB (rebuildable)
[OK] ~/.npm ........................................... 980.0 MB (rebuildable)
[PASS] No personal files or Git working directories touched.
[READY] 34.88 GB eligible for instantaneous safe reclaim.

Safety Guarantee

Why you can click "Allow" without a single worry.

When MacKitty initializes a scan, macOS Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) prompts appear on your screen. Here is why those popups occur and why your data is 100% safe.

The macOS TCC Permission Protocol

Since macOS Sonoma, Apple enforces strict folder-level access policies. When MacKitty scans for Xcode intermediate artifacts or system cache bloat, the operating system asks you to confirm read permission for that specific folder.

No personal data or files are ever deleted. Every single purge is explicitly presented to you in the Triage review screen, allowing you to uncheck any folder, inspect it in Finder with a single click, or skip it entirely.

Questions & Answers

Straightforward answers. No marketing spin.

Never. No personal data or files are ever deleted. MacKitty enforces an absolute strict boundary: it inspects solely regenerable build directories (like ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData), package manager caches, and system log residue. Your Documents, Desktop, Pictures, and iCloud folders are never touched.

macOS requires user consent for an application to read metadata from developer folders (such as ~/Library/Developer) and application caches. When prompted, simply click Allow so MacKitty can accurately report recoverable disk space. Nothing is modified or purged during the scan phase.

Yes, 100%. DerivedData holds temporary build artifacts, index files, and intermediate logs that Xcode produces while compiling apps. Deleting it is standard developer procedure to fix mysterious Xcode compilation glitches, and Xcode will automatically recreate fresh indexes upon your next build.

Commercial cleaners are typically 300+ MB Electron or cross-platform utilities that install background launch daemons, phone home constantly with marketing trackers, and demand recurring monthly fees. MacKitty is written in 100% pure Swift, consumes zero CPU in the background, has zero telemetry, and is free of subscription nag screens.

MacKitty requires macOS 14.0 (Sonoma) or macOS 15.0 (Sequoia). It is compiled as a Universal Binary with native optimizations for Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4, Pro, Max, Ultra) as well as Intel 64-bit processors.