MacClearings vs AppCleaner

What each app is for

AppCleaner, from FreeMacSoft, does one job. Installing an app scatters support files around your Library, and AppCleaner finds them so they can go along with the app. You drag an app onto its window, look over the related files it found, and remove the selection. An optional feature called SmartDelete watches for apps you drag to the Trash and offers to remove their related files too. It has no disk map, no cache cleanup and no duplicate finder, and it isn't trying to.

MacClearings is a disk analyzer and cleaner, and uninstalling is one part of it, in Applications. The rest is arranged around three questions. Why is my disk full? is Breakdown, Map and Find. Make room adds Suggestions, Duplicates and Compress to Applications. What changed is History.

Where AppCleaner is the better choice

• It's free. If uninstalling is what you need, paying for a whole disk app makes little sense.
• It stays out of the way. One window, one job. There is nothing else to learn.
• SmartDelete. It can offer to remove an app's related files at the moment you drag the app to the Trash. MacClearings doesn't watch the Trash; you start an uninstall from Applications.
• Disk images. It notices an app inside a disk image and offers to remove the disk image file instead.
• Older Macs. The current version, 3.7, needs macOS 15, like MacClearings. FreeMacSoft still offers older builds: 3.6.8 for macOS 10.14 to 15.6, 3.6 for 10.13 and 3.4 for 10.10 to 10.12.
• Homebrew. You can install it with brew install --cask appcleaner.

Where MacClearings is the better choice

• Every app's real size. Applications lists every app with the support files it keeps elsewhere, sorted by total size, so you can see which apps cost the most space before deciding anything.
• Leftovers from apps already gone. A Leftovers tab lists support files from apps that are no longer installed.
• Guard rails. Apple apps and apps that are running can't be uninstalled. Launch agents and daemons start unchecked, so background helpers aren't removed by surprise.
• Undo. Uninstalls go through the same review list as every other cleanup, then to the Trash, and History keeps Undo for the whole uninstall and Put Back for single files.
• What a folder is. The field guide, about 220 folders, says what a folder is, which app made it and whether it comes back. AppCleaner lists files without saying what each one is for.
• The rest of the disk. App leftovers are rarely the whole story. Breakdown explains System Data and purgeable space, Suggestions covers caches, logs, old downloads, iPhone and iPad backups and developer data, and Duplicates finds extra copies while always keeping one.
• More in Applications. Login items can be switched on and off, and an Updates tab compares each app's version with its own update feed. Nothing is downloaded or installed.

What happens to the files you remove

AppCleaner. It lists the app and the related files it found before you click Remove. FreeMacSoft's page doesn't say where removed files go. Macworld's walkthrough from October 2015 says that after you click Remove and authenticate, the app and its files are moved to the Trash, so they can be put back until the Trash is emptied. No in-app undo is documented; Finder's own Put Back works on anything in the Trash. The 3.7 release notes warn that without Full Disk Access, some files may fail to be removed.

MacClearings. Uninstall stages the app and its support files and opens the same review list as every other cleanup. Only Move to Trash in that list moves anything. Right before moving, each item is checked again: if it has gone, changed since it was measured, is open in an app, or is now protected, it is skipped and you are told why. The rest goes to the Trash, and History records where each item went. The safety page has the full rules.

AppCleaner, CleanMyMac and Pearcleaner

AppCleaner is often weighed against CleanMyMac. CleanMyMac's Applications module also removes apps with their related files, finds leftovers from apps removed earlier, and updates apps. The difference is everything around it: CleanMyMac is a Mac care suite sold mostly by subscription, from $39.95 a year for one Mac as of October 2026, while AppCleaner is free and does one job. MacPaw's uninstaller help doesn't say whether removed files go to the Trash, and no undo is described.

Pearcleaner is the other free uninstaller people compare with AppCleaner, and its README says AppCleaner inspired it. It is source-available rather than open source, needs macOS 13 or later, moves files to the Trash with an undo history, and its README has marked it On Hold since the end of 2025. MacClearings is a different kind of choice from all three: its uninstaller is one view in a disk app.

Price

AppCleaner is free. FreeMacSoft's site has a donation link, and there is no license or account.

MacClearings costs $25 once, or $12.50 for the first 25 buyers, with one license key and a 30-day refund window. That price only makes sense if you want more than an uninstaller. Details are on the pricing page.

Moving over from AppCleaner

Nothing needs to move. Uninstalls start from the Applications view rather than from dragging an app onto a window, and the Leftovers tab picks up files from apps you removed before. Give MacClearings Full Disk Access if you want every app's files measured; without it, macOS hides some folders, and MacClearings says what it couldn't see.