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) Mac App Store

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

 MacKitty

72% Mon 9:41 AM

MacKitty

Idle

ⓘ

72% used

Macintosh HD

368.6 GB of 512.0 GB used · 143.4 GB free

No personal data or files are ever deleted

CPU

14% Load

GPU

Metal 3

Memory

11.4 GB Used

Network

Connected

Battery

92% ⚡

TOTAL CLEANED

48.2 GB

CLEANUPS RUN

14 times

ANALYZING SYSTEM

48%

142,891 files inspected

~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Build/Products ▌

Scan Complete

6 safe cleanup areas found · verified harmless to remove

Xcode Caches & DerivedData

~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData

18.4 GB

Homebrew Package Caches

~/Library/Caches/Homebrew

6.2 GB

Application System Caches

~/Library/Caches

4.8 GB

Old Downloads & DMG Installers

~/Downloads/*.dmg

3.1 GB

Diagnostic Crash Logs

~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports

1.4 GB

Node Package Manager Cache

~/.npm/_cacache

980 MB

Selected for purge

6 of 6 safe areas

34.88 GB

✨ Kitty found 34.88 GB to save!

0% Purging…

Flushing Xcode intermediate build caches…

34.88 GB Reclaimed

Your Mac disk is clean and breathing fresh air again.

Technical Transparency

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

Most Mac cleaner applications are 300 MB Electron monsters stuffed with tracking libraries and aggressive subscription upsells. MacKitty is a 18 MB native Swift binary designed with Unix transparency. Here is exactly 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/Homebrew — Pre-compiled bottle tarballs downloaded during brew install that linger indefinitely in disk storage.
› ~/.npm/_cacache & ~/.cache/yarn — Tarball archives from JavaScript package managers safely invalidated across builds.
› ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports — Legacy crash telemetry and spin reports from applications long since uninstalled.

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 protected behind macOS Sandbox constraints.
✕ System & Signed Binaries — Read-only Apple system partitions (macOS Sealed System Volume) remain completely untouched.

# MacKitty performs safe POSIX audits before touching any filesystem node
$ mackitty audit --dry-run
[OK] Verified Sandbox permissions
[OK] ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData ........... 18.40 GB (safe ephemeral)
[OK] ~/Library/Caches/Homebrew ....................... 6.20 GB (safe archive)
[OK] ~/.npm/_cacache ................................. 980.0 MB (safe tarball)
[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 never 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.