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// MacCleaner Pro

MacCleaner Pro — the best free Mac cleaner
with an on-device AI advisor

A complete free mac cleaner software with an AI assistant that analyses your Mac's usage and recommends the best cleaning method — caches, duplicates, mail attachments and forgotten leftovers, gone in seconds.

Download Free See what it cleans
4.7M+ Macs cleaned globally
0 Disk space reclaimed
0 Average user rating
0 Average scan time

What it does

Everything your Mac
was holding onto

A single scan reveals hidden gigabytes of clutter your Mac accumulates silently — from Xcode caches to iCloud residue to forgotten language packs.

🗑

Deep Junk Scan

Scans system caches, user caches, app logs, crash reports, broken login items, Spotlight index leftovers and Xcode derived data. Identifies every byte that is safe to delete — nothing more.

📦

Average per scan

8.3 GB
reclaimed on first run
📊

Storage Breakdown

See exactly where your space went before you delete anything.

App Caches
4.1 GB
Mail Attach.
2.8 GB
Xcode Data
2.0 GB
Lang. Files
1.1 GB
Duplicates
0.8 GB
Trash Bins
0.4 GB
🗂

Complete Uninstaller

Drag an app to the window. MacCleaner finds every support file, plugin, preference pane and container it left behind — and removes all of them together.

🔍

Duplicate Finder

Perceptual-hash comparison finds identical photos, documents and downloads even when filenames differ. Preview before deleting.

📈

Monthly Trend

Track how your disk usage changes over time after each cleanup session.

🔒

Privacy Cleanup

Wipes browser histories, autofill data, saved passwords from keychain entries you no longer need, recent document lists in 30+ apps, and the QuickLook thumbnail cache — keeping your activity private even from local access.

Real results

See the difference
a single scan makes

Before

Disk usage on a typical 512 GB Mac

389 GB used

System · Apps · Caches · Other · Free: 123 GB

After

After MacCleaner Pro scan

371 GB used
✦ 18 GB freed — Free space: 141 GB

See it in action

A scan in
every step

Flip through each stage of a real MacCleaner Pro session — from the first deep scan to the final clean.

MacCleaner Pro — Scanning...
62%
CURRENTLY SCANNING
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.dt.Xcode
3.2 GB found so far
App Caches
1.8 GB
System Logs
0.9 GB
Xcode Data
0.5 GB
MacCleaner Pro — Scan Complete
TOTAL JUNK FOUND
14.2 GB
App Caches
4.1 GB
Mail Attach.
2.8 GB
Xcode Data
2.0 GB
Lang. Files
1.1 GB
Duplicates
0.8 GB
Clean All — Free 14.2 GB
MacCleaner Pro — Duplicates
DUPLICATE FILES 847 found · 2.3 GB
2
3
5
2
4
Remove 6 groups — Free 2.3 GB
MacCleaner Pro — Clean Complete
CLEANUP COMPLETE
18.4
GB FREED
Your Mac is running 23% faster
1,240
files removed
847
duplicates
12
apps cleaned
// click deck or use arrows to explore

How it works

How to clean up your Mac in 3 steps

// 01

Download & open

Drag MacCleaner Pro to your Applications folder and open it. No installer, no admin password, no account sign-up. It works on every Mac from 2010 onwards.

// 02

Run the smart scan

Click Scan. MacCleaner Pro checks every standard junk location — system caches, app logs, mail downloads, browser data, Xcode leftovers — and groups results by category.

// 03

Review & clean

Inspect what was found, deselect anything you want to keep, then click Clean. That is it. Most users reclaim more than 8 GB on their very first run.

100% Free

Download the best free Mac cleaner for your Mac

Join 4.7 million Mac users who already cleaned their drives with MacCleaner Pro. No subscription, no ads, no hidden upsells.

Download MacCleaner Pro

macOS 10.9 Mavericks and later · Universal Binary (Intel + Apple Silicon) · Version 5.4.1

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about MacCleaner Pro

Yes, completely. MacCleaner Pro is free to download and use. There is no trial period, no feature paywall, and no subscription. The app does not show ads. Development is supported through optional donations — entirely voluntary.
No. MacCleaner Pro only targets files that macOS itself marks as re-creatable — caches, logs, and temporary data. You always see a detailed list before anything is removed. Deselect any category and it will not be touched. The app never modifies your documents, photos, or app data.
Yes. MacCleaner Pro ships as a universal binary. It runs natively on M1, M2, M3 and M4 chips as well as every Intel Mac. Performance on Apple Silicon is noticeably faster for large scans.
MacCleaner Pro runs on macOS 10.9 Mavericks through macOS Tahoe 16. The same binary covers all thirteen supported versions. If you have an older Mac that cannot run macOS Sequoia or Tahoe, you are still covered.
CleanMyMac X costs $39.95/year. CCleaner for Mac is Windows-first and has a weaker macOS scanner. MacCleaner Pro is free, Mac-only from the ground up, and does not bundle any tracking or upsell prompts. It also supports far older macOS versions than either alternative.
No file contents or personal data ever leave your Mac. MacCleaner Pro performs all scanning locally. The only optional network request is a version-update check on launch, which you can disable in Preferences. No analytics, no telemetry.

// measured results · 2026

Mac cleaner benchmarks: scan speed, space reclaimed, boot time.

Most mac cleaner marketing leads with a headline number — "14 GB freed!" — without telling you how it was measured, on what hardware, or whether the figure is reproducible. This guide takes a different approach. Every performance claim about MacCleaner Pro is drawn from internal diagnostics collected across 4.7 million scans, cross-referenced against hardware generation and macOS version. The result is a dataset that shows not just what the best case looks like, but what a realistic first run looks like on a 2019 MacBook Air with 256 GB of storage, or an M2 Mac mini used as a developer workstation. If you want to know what a mac clean up utility actually delivers, not what the marketing says, this is the guide. Whether you need a focused cache cleaner mac module or a complete disk cleaner mac that maps every storage location, MacCleaner Pro covers both in a single scan.

// aggregate benchmark data · 4.7M scans

What the numbers actually show across 4.7 million scans

8.3GBMedian first scan
94sMedian scan time
23%Avg perf gain
4.9★User rating

Across 4.7 million scans collected from MacCleaner Pro installations between January 2025 and May 2026, the median amount reclaimed on a first run is 8.3 GB. The distribution is right-skewed: 25% of users reclaim less than 4 GB (typically newer Macs with smaller usage history), while 25% reclaim more than 14 GB (typically developer machines or Macs used for video work). The median scan time is 94 seconds on Apple Silicon and 210 seconds on Intel hardware with a spinning disk. On NVMe-equipped Intel Macs the median is 145 seconds. These figures include the full unified scan: system caches, app caches, mail, Xcode data, language files, large and old files, duplicate hashing, privacy traces and malware signatures. The 23% average performance gain is derived from the ratio of app launch times before and after cleanup, measured on the subset of users who ran the benchmark tool inside the app. This metric is self-reported and should be treated as directional rather than precise. As both a mac system cleaner and a mac performance optimizer, the same engine reclaims space and reduces background overhead in one pass.

App and system caches: 4.1 GB median, largest single category

App and system caches represent the largest single category in aggregate, accounting for a median 4.1 GB on a first scan. The distribution across Mac types shows a clear pattern: browser caches (Safari, Chrome, Firefox) account for 1.2-1.8 GB on average Mac users; developer tool caches (npm global store, Homebrew downloads, Docker overlay layers) add 2-4 GB on developer machines. System caches — font glyph maps, icon databases, Spotlight index fragments — add 0.3-0.8 GB across all Mac types. The removal of app and system caches has the most immediate effect on disk pressure because these files are large and concentrated. They are also the fastest to re-accumulate: a Mac that has been cleaned returns to its previous cache volume within four to eight weeks of normal use, which is why a scheduled monthly scan recovers a consistent 2-4 GB each run.

Xcode and developer data: 12.8 GB median on developer Macs

For Macs with Xcode installed, the DerivedData folder is consistently the single largest removable item. The median across all Macs with Xcode is 12.8 GB of DerivedData — the 90th percentile is 38 GB. Old simulator runtimes (iOS 15, tvOS 16) that are no longer needed add a further 4-8 GB. The MacCleaner Pro scanner identifies which derived data folders correspond to projects with recent activity (opened in the last 60 days) and which belong to archived or deleted projects. Only inactive DerivedData is flagged for removal by default, with a toggle to include active project caches. This conservative default is why the developer-category benchmark is lower than the raw Xcode footprint: 8.4 GB flagged vs 12.8 GB total present. The difference represents active build caches the scanner correctly preserves.

Mail attachments: 2.8 GB median, steady accumulation

Mail.app accumulates attachments at a predictable rate: approximately 200-400 MB per month for a moderately active email user. After three years, the mail container typically holds 1.5-4.5 GB of attachments, with the median landing at 2.8 GB. The scan identifies these inside the com.apple.mail container rather than a generic cache folder, which is why most lighter mac cleaners miss them. Removing mail attachments frees disk without losing any email — Mail re-downloads attachments from the server the next time you view the message. The benchmark shows this category is more consistent than developer caches: the variance is lower because mail usage is more uniform across Mac types than Xcode usage.

Duplicate files: 2.1 GB median, perceptual hash accuracy

The duplicate finder benchmark covers two metrics: bytes found and false-positive rate. The median bytes identified as duplicates is 2.1 GB per scan, dominated by photo duplicates (downloaded multiple times, exported in different formats) and document duplicates (versioned working copies). The false-positive rate — cases where the finder marks two non-identical files as duplicates — is under 0.01% on the byte-hash pass and under 0.08% on the perceptual-hash pass. The perceptual hash operates at a similarity threshold of 94%, meaning two images must be 94% identical in luminance to be grouped — a threshold calibrated to eliminate ambiguous near-matches while catching all genuine duplicates. Users can adjust this threshold in Preferences if they want a more aggressive or more conservative scan.

Boot time, app launch speed and RAM pressure: the indirect metrics

The most convincing mac cleaner performance story is not about disk space — it is about perceived speed. Disk cleanup affects boot time through two mechanisms: it reduces the volume of data the boot process must index (Spotlight), and it removes startup items that were registered by apps subsequently uninstalled. The MacCleaner Pro startup manager benchmark shows that disabling non-essential login agents reduces median boot time from 48 seconds to 22 seconds on Intel Macs, and from 19 seconds to 11 seconds on Apple Silicon. App launch speed improves for apps that open large local caches on startup — mail clients, design tools, IDEs — because the cache is rebuilt fresh rather than deserialized from a stale on-disk structure. RAM pressure improvement after a memory cleaner flush is measurable: the live monitor shows a median 1.2 GB released from inactive pages, which reduces swap activity and lowers the incidence of app-launch delays caused by memory pressure. These metrics together represent what users describe as their Mac feeling faster after a cleanup — the description is accurate, and the mechanism is these three indirect effects rather than raw disk speed.

AI · workload prediction · no cloud

AI workload prediction: knowing when to clean before disk pressure hits

The AI assistant's most practical feature is not its cleanup recommendations — it is its accumulation forecast. By analysing the growth rate of each cache category over the last 30 days, the model projects when disk pressure will next reach a threshold that affects performance. A developer with active Xcode projects might see a 7-day forecast: "6.2 GB DerivedData expected by next Wednesday." A photographer with a Photos library might see a monthly forecast: "1.4 GB thumbnails, clean after the next import batch." These forecasts are generated entirely on-device using a linear regression model over the category history stored locally. The forecast accuracy measured across the user base is 81% within 2 GB — good enough to schedule a scan before disk pressure becomes a problem rather than after. This turns the mac cleaner workflow from reactive to proactive, which is the correct posture for a utility you want to run in the background rather than manually invoke in a low-disk panic.

Scan speed by hardware generation — what to expect on your Mac

Scan duration is dominated by storage I/O speed rather than CPU — the scan engine reads each file's metadata in parallel using Grand Central Dispatch, saturating the NVMe bandwidth available on Apple Silicon Macs and NVMe-equipped Intel Macs. On mechanical hard drives the scan is limited by rotational seek time, which is why the Mac mini with an HDD takes 312 seconds despite being a capable machine for everything else. The amount found (GB) is independent of scan speed: older Macs that have been running for years without a cleanup typically reveal more junk despite taking longer to scan. If you are running a mac clean up on a spinning-disk Mac, the wait is worth it — the scan will finish and the results will be complete. If you are impatient, the Quick Scan option skips the duplicate hash pass and reduces scan time by 40%, at the cost of not finding duplicate files.

Subsequent scans are faster because the manifest cache warms between runs: paths that were empty on the previous scan are skipped until their last-modified time changes. A weekly scheduled scan on an M2 Mac typically completes in under 30 seconds after the first run, making scheduled mac cleaner maintenance genuinely invisible. This is the benchmark picture that matters most for long-term use: not the dramatic first-run headline, but the ongoing scan-and-clean cycle that keeps the Mac consistently fast without requiring attention.

paid cleaner typical
$40/yr
  • × Similar scan depth
  • × Similar GB reclaimed
  • × Telemetry running during scan
  • × Cloud AI only
  • × Annual renewal required
MacCleaner Pro
FREE
  • ✓ 430+ paths · 8.3 GB median
  • ✓ 72-148s full scan · all hardware
  • ✓ Zero telemetry during scan
  • ✓ On-device AI · workload forecast
  • ✓ Free forever

The benchmark data shows that free mac cleaner software at the quality level of MacCleaner Pro delivers scan depth and recovery volume comparable to paid alternatives, at a fraction of the cost. The paid suites do not meaningfully outperform MacCleaner Pro on any quantitative metric — GB recovered, scan speed, false-positive rate or RAM footprint. The differentiators are cosmetic (treemap visualisation) or architecturally inferior (cloud-dependent AI). For users who evaluate a mac cleaner on measurable outcomes rather than brand recognition, MacCleaner Pro is the correct choice — and the benchmark data supports that conclusion.

// benchmark summary

Measured, reproducible, honest Mac cleaner performance

  1. 8.3 GB median first scan · 4.7M data points
  2. 94s median scan Apple Silicon · NVMe storage
  3. 23% perf gain app launch + boot time · user-measured

These three numbers — 8.3 GB, 94 seconds, 23% — represent what a mac clean up with MacCleaner Pro delivers on median hardware. They are derived from aggregate telemetry (anonymised, stored locally, never uploaded) and cross-referenced against hardware specifications. They will vary: a developer Mac with years of Xcode data will reclaim more. A recently purchased Mac will reclaim less. A Mac with a spinning disk will take longer. But the median is honest, it is measured, and it is reproducible. Every user who downloads MacCleaner Pro and runs the unified scan on a Mac used for 12+ months will land within the distribution these numbers describe. That is the correct way to present mac cleaner performance data — not a best-case headline, but an honest percentile. MacCleaner Pro performs full mac storage optimization to help you free up disk space mac without manual Terminal commands. This is the engineering behind a credible promise to remove junk files mac users have accumulated over years of normal use.

Side by side

MacCleaner Pro vs.
the paid alternatives

Twelve features that define a serious mac cleaner — and how the four most-searched options stack up. MacCleaner Pro is free; the others charge around forty dollars a year.

Feature MacCleaner Pro Free CleanMyMac X $39.95/yr CCleaner for Mac $29.95/yr MacKeeper $45.00/yr
Deep junk cleanup Yes Yes Limited Yes
System & app cache clearing Yes Yes Yes Yes
App uninstaller with residuals Yes Yes No Partial
Duplicate finder Yes Yes No Yes
Large & old files scanner Yes Yes No Yes
Startup & login items manager Yes Yes Limited Yes
Privacy wipe (history, autofill) Yes Yes Yes Partial
Memory cleaner (live RAM flush) Yes Yes No Yes
Scheduled background scans Yes Yes No Limited
AI assistant / advisor Yes Beta No No
Malware & adware scan Yes Yes No Yes
Real-time menu-bar widget Not yet Yes No Yes
Price / licence Free forever $39.95/yr $29.95/yr $45.00/yr

MacCleaner Pro wins eleven of twelve categories. The single gap — a persistent menu-bar widget for live monitoring — is in active development for the next release. Every other feature listed here is available immediately, at no charge, on every MacBook from 2010 onwards.

// Ready when you are

Download MacCleaner Pro
free for your Mac.

No account, no trial wall, no upsell. The full app — deep junk scan, app cleaner, duplicate finder, memory cleaner and AI assistant — on every macOS from Mavericks 10.9 through Tahoe.

MacCleaner Pro
v5.4.138 MBmacOS 10.9+
Download Free
  • Apple Silicon native — M1, M2, M3, M4
  • Signed & notarised by Apple
  • 100% offline — no cloud, no telemetry
  • Free forever — no trial, no upsell

$ shasum -a 256 MacCleanerPro-5.4.1.dmg ✓ verified