Detect hidden large files
The gigabytes Finder never shows you: forgotten downloads, stale caches, old disk images and build folders buried ten levels deep. Free Mac surfaces every one of them.
Clean your Mac like you are playing a game.
See your whole drive as one colourful map, then clear out the hidden large files quietly eating your space.
What it finds on a typical Mac
- Xcode DerivedData
- node_modules
- iOS device backups
- Docker disk images
- Old .dmg installers
- Forgotten downloads
- Caches under ~/Library
- App leftovers
- Cargo target folders
- npm and Gradle caches
- Python virtualenvs
- Screen recordings
Everything you need to take the space back.
A tiny native app that makes a full drive obvious, and clearing it oddly satisfying.
Easy visualisation
Your whole drive becomes one colourful map where a block's size is its size on disk, so the biggest problem is also the biggest shape.
Uninstall an app, and its mess
Dragging an app to the Trash leaves gigabytes behind. Free Mac finds the caches, containers and launch agents it scattered, then removes the lot together.
Built for developers too
node_modules, Cargo target folders, DerivedData, npm and Gradle caches, virtualenvs. It finds them across every project, says what regenerates each one, and only counts a folder as build output when its manifest sits beside it.
Watch the whole machine
Processor, memory, network and battery, sampled once a second, with every tile opening into detail.
See what drains the battery
Energy impact per process, the same measure Activity Monitor reports, next to health, cycle count and where every watt is going.
Clear it
Watch the gigabytes come back.
Pick the blocks you do not need and hand them over. Everything goes to the macOS Trash first, so anything can be put straight back until you empty it.
An example developer Mac. Your blocks will be different.
From “my disk is full” to fixed, in about a minute.
Easy visualisation
Your whole drive, in one picture
One screen tells the story. Every folder is a block sized by what it actually costs you, nested inside its parent, with its total on the header. The ring in the sidebar splits the same scan by file type, so you can see at a glance whether it is video, build output or something you forgot about.
- Eight colour-coded types: video, image, audio, archive, developer, document, app and other. Tick one to redraw the map with only those files.
- Treemap or list. Switch to a sortable table when you would rather tick ten rows than click ten blocks.
- Nothing to configure. Open the app, pick a folder, read the map.
Uninstall properly
An app is never just the app
Dragging an app to the Trash leaves its caches, containers, preferences and launch agents behind, quietly, for years. Free Mac lists every application with what it really costs, then removes the bundle and the leftovers together.
- The real number. Chrome is a 1.4 GB app hiding about 11 GB of profile and cache outside its bundle.
- Vendor folders too. It finds
Application Support/Google/Chromewithout sweeping up Google Drive beside it. - You choose. Every leftover is listed and ticked individually before anything moves.
For developers
node_modules is not a personality trait
Build output and package caches are the quietest way to lose a drive. Free Mac walks your projects and the known cache locations, groups what it finds by the tool that made it, and says what regenerates each one before you decide.
- npm, Cargo, Gradle, Maven, Go, pip, CocoaPods, Homebrew, Bun, Deno, Playwright and Xcode DerivedData.
- Not just any folder called build. A match needs its manifest beside it, so
targetcounts only next to aCargo.toml. - Told what it costs. Rebuilt locally, or downloaded again: each group says which.
While you are in there
What the rest of the machine is doing
A full disk is rarely the only thing slowing a Mac down. The System tab reads processor, memory, network and battery once a second, and every tile opens into detail: which app is draining the battery, which one is saturating the network, and what you can quit.
- Energy impact per app, the same measure Activity Monitor reports, so you can see what is eating the battery.
- Quit a stuck process, but only where macOS will allow it. Anything holding your login session says so instead.
- No background agent. Quit the app and its sampling stops. A widget you add yourself refreshes a few times an hour, the way every Mac widget does.
No setup. No sign-in. No tutorial.
Download it, point it at a folder, and you are already looking at the answer.
- 1
Download
Grab the app and drag Free Mac into your Applications folder.
- 2
Scan
Pick any folder, or use the built-in Scan Home and Scan Downloads shortcuts.
- 3
Zoom in
Dive into the biggest block. Breadcrumb, Back, Esc and Backspace all navigate.
- 4
Clear it
Send what you do not need to the Trash, and watch the gigabytes come back.
Where it sits
An honest table. The paid suites do more. This one maps your disk, for nothing, and then gets out of the way.
| Free Mac | macOS Storage pane | Paid cleaners | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visual disk map | Yes | No, one category bar | Usually |
| Names hidden large files | Every one | Calls them System Data | Yes |
| Account required | None | None | Usually |
| Telemetry | None | Apple's | Typically on |
| Background daemon | None | System | Common |
| Download size | 11.6 MB | n/a | 100 to 300 MB |
Looking is free. Only cleaning is paid.
Scan the whole Mac, read every map, find every leftover and every build cache without paying anything. A subscription unlocks moving things to the Trash.
Free
$0forever, no account
- Scan any folder, or the whole Mac
- See the whole drive as a treemap, sized by what each file takes
- Filter by any of eight file types
- Find developer caches and build output, and every app with its leftovers
- Search every file on the Mac with Spotlight
- Live CPU, memory, network and battery, every reading in full
Pro
$19.99every 6 months
- Everything in Free, plus
- Every size and file count, across the map, apps and developer files
- Open a folder and go deeper into the map
- Reveal any file in Finder
- Quit a process from the live system view
- Move files to the Trash from the map or list
- Uninstall apps with all their support files
- Clean developer caches and build folders
- A Mac desktop widget: CPU, memory, network and disk at a glance
- Every future update while subscribed
One key unlocks one Mac. Activating checks it online once, then it works offline from then on. Cleaning keeps working for 14 days past a renewal, so a failed card never locks you out mid-clear.
Try every scan first. The app only asks for a key at the moment you press Trash, and it tells you exactly what it is about to remove.
- Free Mac
- Free to scan, $19.99 every 6 months to clean
- macOS Storage pane
- Built in, but it calls the problem “System Data”
- Paid cleaners
- $10 to $40 a year, usually with an account
Built for macOS
A real Mac app, not a website in a box.
Free Mac is built for the Mac, not squeezed into it. It opens instantly, uses a few megabytes of memory, and leaves nothing running when you close it. A disk tool should cost you less than the space it saves.
SpeedScans in parallel across every core, so the window never freezes
MemoryBounded by design, a whole Home folder will not blow it up
Size11.6 MB universal app, Apple Silicon and Intel in one file
FootprintNo daemon, no login item, no preference pane, no menu bar icon
- Not Electron. No bundled browser.
- No account, no telemetry, no network calls.
- Uninstall by dragging one app to the Trash.
Questions?
What is free, and what costs money?
Everything that looks is free, forever, with no account and no trial timer: scanning any folder or the whole Mac, both views, the file-type filters, what each app really costs, the developer cache scan, file search and the live system readouts. A $19.99 every 6 months subscription unlocks the one thing that changes your disk, moving files to the Trash. You can scan as much as you like before deciding.
Which download do I need, Apple Silicon or Intel?
Neither, specifically. There is one universal app that runs natively on both M-series and Intel Macs, so there is no wrong choice to make.
What counts as a hidden large file?
Anything big that Finder will not show you in one place: Xcode DerivedData, node_modules folders, Docker disk images, iOS device backups, old installers and years of caches under ~/Library.
Finder can sort one folder by size. Free Mac measures every folder at once and draws the result, which is how a 40 GB problem stops hiding.
Is Free Mac safe to open?
Yes. Every release is signed with a registered Apple Developer ID and checked by Apple before it reaches you, so macOS knows who made it and that nothing was changed on the way.
Drag it to Applications, then double-click it there. The first time, macOS asks whether you want to open an app downloaded from the internet. Click Open, and that is the last you will see of it. The install guide walks through it.
Does anything leave my Mac?
No. There is no account system, no telemetry, no crash reporter and no network client in the app at all. File names, paths and sizes are read, drawn, and forgotten when you quit. See the privacy page.
Can it delete something I actually needed?
Deletions go to the macOS Trash, never a permanent rm, so anything you remove can be put straight back until you empty it. You can also Reveal in Finder first to look at an item in context before acting on it.
How is this different from DaisyDisk or CleanMyMac?
Those are polished commercial suites. DaisyDisk is a paid one-off, CleanMyMac is a subscription, and both do a lot more than map your disk.
Free Mac does one job: show you the map and let you act on it. The scan is free, it is 11.6 MB, and there is nothing to sign into. If you want an all-in-one tune-up utility, buy one of theirs. If you want to see where the space went, this is enough.
Why is macOS System Data so large?
System Data is the catch-all bucket macOS uses for sleep images, local Time Machine snapshots, caches, logs, Xcode DerivedData, Docker disk images and device backups. Most of it lives under ~/Library. Scan that folder directly and the map will name the actual culprits instead of showing you a mystery grey bar.
Which macOS versions are supported?
macOS 10.15 Catalina and later. The app is built and used on Sonoma, Sequoia and Tahoe. Nothing is installed outside the .app bundle, so dragging it to the Trash removes it completely.
Go find your missing gigabytes.
11.6 MB to download, about ten seconds to install, and you will know exactly where the space went.
Universal app · macOS 10.15 or later · free to scan · no account, ever