mac-cleaner

A zero-dependency bash script and one-click macOS Automator app that deep-cleans every cache, log, messaging media dump, and "System Data" junk folder your Mac accumulates — with special focus on Adobe Creative Cloud, video editors, and bloated communication apps.

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Why mac-cleaner?

Ever opened System Settings → General → Storage only to find that "System Data" (Sistem Verileri) is hogging 50GB to 150GB+ of your SSD with no built-in way to see or clear what's inside?

Finder lumps everything it doesn't consider standard user documents or photos into "System Data":

• Huge media caches from video & audio suites (Adobe Premiere, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve)
• Gigabytes of cached images, videos, and voice messages from WhatsApp, Telegram, and Discord
• Hidden system temporary folders in /private/var/folders that macOS forgets to sweep
• Build caches and toolchains from developer tools & package managers (Homebrew, npm, pip, Xcode)

mac-cleaner hunts down these hidden disk hogs and reclaims your SSD in seconds.

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What It Cleans

1. 💬 Messaging & Social Apps (Local Caches Only)

Safe guarantee: This only deletes temporary media caches stored on your Mac. It never touches your chat histories or deletes media from your phone / cloud servers. Next time you view older media on WhatsApp or Telegram, it will simply re-download on demand.

• WhatsApp: Cleans cache, temporary media downloads, and group container caches across both Mac App Store and direct Web downloads (net.whatsapp.WhatsApp, desktop.WhatsApp, and shared group containers).
• Telegram: Wipes cached stickers, downloaded media (account-*/postbox/media), and account database caches.
• Discord: Clears regular Cache, Chromium Code Cache, and accumulated crash reports (Crashpad).
• Slack: Clears message caches and Service Worker CacheStorage.
• Spotify: Purges bloated offline streaming cache (PersistentCache).
• Zoom & Microsoft Teams: Purges diagnostic logs, support dump folders, and temporary blob storage.

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2. 🖥️ macOS "System Data" & OS-Level Cleanup

• /private/var/folders Temporary Files: macOS holds onto user temp and cache directories for weeks on machines that sleep instead of rebooting. Scans and prunes files older than 3 days.
• Deep User & System Logs: Empties ~/Library/Logs/* and user application error archives.
• System Caches: Wipes user-level cache repositories in ~/Library/Caches/*.
• Trash Bin: Triggers native Finder AppleScript cleanup across all connected internal and external APFS volumes.

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3. 🎨 Adobe Creative Cloud & Post-Production Suites

Targets all installed versions of Adobe applications dynamically using recursive directory matching:

• Shared Media Caches: Empties Common/Media Cache Files, Common/Media Cache, Common/Peak Files, Common/PTX, and Common/Cache.
• Premiere Pro: Deletes project-level media cache files inside ~/Documents/Adobe/Premiere Pro/*/Profile-*/.
• After Effects: Cleans Disk Cache, preview renders, and temporary composition files.
• Photoshop: Purges AutoRecover scratch state and temporary work files.
• Lightroom Classic & CC: Wipes preview catalog files (*.lrdata) and sync caches.
• Audition: Empties peak files and autosave directories.
• InDesign: Removes orphaned InDesign Recovery files.
• Media Encoder: Clears Surround cache and render log history.
• Substance 3D Suite: Cleans Painter, Designer, Sampler, and Stager cache & temp folders.
• Camera Raw & Bridge: Empties full RAW image cache and thumbnail libraries.
• Creative Cloud Desktop: Clears CoreSync, OOBE, and UPI runtime cache files.
• DaVinci Resolve: Clears CacheClip, gallery stills (.gallery), and application render cache.

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4. 🛠️ Package Managers & Developer Stores

Where tools provide built-in safe cleanup routines, mac-cleaner calls them natively to maintain registry integrity:

• Homebrew: brew cleanup -s and brew autoremove
• Node.js: npm cache clean --force, pnpm store prune, yarn cache clean
• Python: pip3 cache purge, uv cache clean
• Apple / iOS: Xcode DerivedData, iOS/watchOS/tvOS DeviceSupport symbol caches, CoreSimulator caches, and uninstalled simulator cleanup (xcrun simctl delete unavailable)
• Other Stores: Gradle (~/.gradle/caches), Cargo registry caches, CocoaPods, SwiftPM, Go build cache, Cypress, and Playwright browsers

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5. 🌐 Web Browsers

• Safari: Cleans com.apple.Safari browser caches.
• Google Chrome & Edge: Clears Default/Cache and Media Cache.
• Firefox: Wipes cache2 disk storage across all user profiles.

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Installation & Usage

1. Terminal (via Make)

git clone https://github.com/AlptugDag/Mac-Cleaner.git
cd Mac-Cleaner
sudo make install

You can now run the tool from anywhere using:

mac-cleaner            # dry run — see what would be deleted
mac-cleaner --yes      # actually delete
mac-cleaner --help     # show help menu

(If you prefer not to install it globally, you can just run ./clean.sh from the folder).

2. One-click Automator App

The repo includes a ready-to-use macOS Automator application in MacCleaner.app. Double-click it from Finder — it will:

1. Show a start notification immediately.
2. Run the full clean in the background.
3. Show a completion notification when done.

Optional: Full Disk Access (recommended)

macOS silently blocks access to Trash, Mail, Messages and other sandboxed folders without this grant.

1. Apple menu → System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access
2. Click + and add MacCleaner.app (or your Terminal app).
3. Toggle it on. macOS will quit the app — reopen it afterwards.

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Safety & Design Philosophy

• Zero External Dependencies: Runs entirely on stock macOS bash, standard UNIX utilities (find, awk, rm), and AppleScript.
• Dry-Run by Default: Calling ./clean.sh without flags will never delete a single byte.
• Preserves Your Data: Never touches projects, documents, photo libraries, or chat histories.

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License

MIT License — feel free to fork, customize, and share!