MacClearings vs CleanMyMac

What each app is for

CleanMyMac, from MacPaw, is an all-in-one Mac care suite. Alongside cleanup it has malware scanning and real-time protection, performance tools and menu bar monitors, an uninstaller and app updater, duplicate and similar-photo finders, a bubble map of folders called Space Lens, cloud and Gmail cleanup, and Smart Care, which runs several of these routines in one click.

MacClearings covers one part of that: disk space. It is arranged around three questions. Why is my disk full? is Breakdown, Map and Find. Make room is Suggestions, Duplicates, Applications and Compress. What changed is History. It has no malware scanner, no cloud cleanup and no system monitor beyond each running app's CPU and memory in the Applications inspector.

Where CleanMyMac is the better choice

• Breadth. Malware protection, an app updater, menu bar monitors for CPU, memory, battery and disk health, cloud cleanup for iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive, and Gmail cleanup. MacClearings does none of these. Its Applications view can check for app updates, but never downloads or installs them.
• Older Macs. CleanMyMac runs on macOS 11 Big Sur and later. MacClearings needs macOS 15.
• Where you get it. The MacPaw Store, the Mac App Store and Setapp, with a 7-day trial. MacClearings is a direct download only.
• Similar photos. CleanMyMac finds similar images as well as exact duplicates. MacClearings finds exact duplicates only.
• AI tools. AI Clutter covers caches and logs from Claude, Codex, Gemini and Cursor, plus local models from Ollama and LM Studio. MacClearings clears Cursor's editor caches but doesn't touch local AI models today.
• Several Macs. MacPaw sells plans for 2 and 5 Macs.
• One click, if you want it. If you'd rather not review each item, Smart Care and the System Junk tile clean without a review step. MacClearings always asks you to review.

Where MacClearings is the better choice

• One price, no account, no analytics. MacClearings costs $25 once. CleanMyMac is sold mainly by subscription, and MacPaw Store licenses are activated by signing in to a MacPaw Account. Its privacy policy lists usage analytics through Google, error reports through Sentry, and log data, which it says is mandatory, including cleanup activity logs with file paths. MacClearings has no analytics and goes online only for its own updates, the Updates tab in Applications, and license activation.
• Every cleanup reviewed and reversible. One review list for everything, then the Trash, then Undo or Put Back from History.
• Developer data in the main app. CleanMyMac's app covers Xcode Junk and AI Clutter. MacPaw's broader developer coverage (Homebrew, npm, pip, Cargo, Go, Gradle, Docker and more) lives in CleanMyMac CLI, a separate command-line tool in public beta since July 2026. MacClearings' Suggestions include rules for Xcode DerivedData, archives, device support and simulators, npm, Yarn, pnpm and Bun, pip, uv and Poetry, Homebrew, Cargo, Go, Gradle and Maven, CocoaPods and Swift packages, Playwright and Cypress browsers, JetBrains and VS Code or Cursor caches, and project build folders, all under the same review list and Trash. More on the developer page.
• Explanations written ahead of time. CleanMyMac's Smart Insights explains items with Apple Intelligence on demand, which needs Apple silicon, macOS 26 and Apple Intelligence turned on. Its disk breakdown puts logs, caches and VM files under Other. MacClearings' Breakdown explains System Data and purgeable space in plain words, and its field guide of about 220 folders is written in advance, ships with the app, and works on every Mac that runs it, Intel included.
• Space that lasts. CleanMyMac's My Activity shows cleanup progress. MacClearings measures each cleaned place again after a day, a week and a month, shows in History how much stayed free, and orders Suggestions by it. It never checks app or browser caches for you, because apps rebuild them within days.

What happens to the files you remove

CleanMyMac. MacPaw's help pages say files removed with Duplicates and Large & Old Files are deleted permanently and skip the Trash. Items from the Photos library are the exception and go to Recently Deleted. For System Junk, Space Lens, AI Clutter and the uninstaller, the help pages don't say whether the Trash is used. No undo is described anywhere in that documentation. Review is optional: you can open the full list of what System Junk found, or click Clean on its tile and remove everything at once.

MacClearings. Checked items wait in the Cleanup tray, which remembers them between launches. Review & Clean Up lists every staged item with its size, and 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 details.

CleanMyMac, Mole and MacClearings

CleanMyMac is also often compared with Mole. Mole has a free, open-source command-line tool and a $19 Mac app for 2 Macs, both without a subscription, with deep developer and AI-tool cleanup and a System Data group. Like CleanMyMac, it doesn't send everything to the Trash: its docs say the Mac app removes caches permanently by default, and the command-line mo clean empties the Trash unless you exclude it. MacClearings costs more than Mole, less than a year of CleanMyMac All-in-One, and moves everything to the Trash.

Price: the CleanMyMac subscription and a one-time license

As of October 22, 2026, the MacPaw Store lists these prices for one Mac: Essential Trio (Cleanup, Applications and My Clutter) at $19.95 a year, and All-in-One at $39.95 a year, $9.95 a month or $119.95 one-time. The one-time license doesn't expire, but it covers updates only within the current major version; subscriptions include major upgrades. The MacPaw Store offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. On the Mac App Store, CleanMyMac is a free download with in-app purchases, and on Setapp it is part of the membership.

MacClearings costs $25 once, or $12.50 for the first 25 buyers, with one license key and a 30-day refund window. There is no subscription. Details are on the pricing page.

Moving over from CleanMyMac

There is nothing to export or import. A few things to know first:

• MacClearings needs macOS 15 or later.
• It won't replace CleanMyMac's malware protection, app updater, monitors or cloud cleanup. If you rely on those, you'll still need something for them.
• Folders you want left alone can be excluded in Settings, much like an ignore list.
• Expect a review list every time, and expect to empty the Trash yourself once you're sure.