MacClearings vs DiskBuddy

How close the two apps are

DiskBuddy 2.0 and MacClearings are close, and it's fair to say so first. Both scan the whole disk once and give you an overview, a map, search, cleanup, duplicates, applications with their leftovers, compression and a record of what you've done. Both stage items for review, use the Trash by default, offer Undo, and need no account. Both match duplicates by size, then a partial read, then a SHA-256 hash.

So the choice comes down to details. DiskBuddy leans toward ways of looking at a scan and watching the system. MacClearings leans toward explaining what it finds, and toward checking whether the space you free stays free.

Where DiskBuddy is the better choice

• More ways to chart a scan. DiskBuddy lists eight views of one scan: folder grid, sunburst, flame graph, nested bubbles, mind map, ranked list, age map and treemap. MacClearings has a sunburst and a treemap.
• A system monitor. Live CPU, memory with swap and pressure, network, per-volume storage and battery health, the busiest processes, and listening ports with a Stop button, plus a menu bar item showing free space. For each app it shows CPU and memory over 24 hours, the network hosts it talks to and the files it has open. MacClearings charts CPU and memory for one running app at a time, in the Applications inspector.
• macOS 14 and Windows. DiskBuddy runs on macOS 14, and one key also covers its Windows version. MacClearings needs macOS 15 and is Mac only.
• Launch price. $19 for the first 400 copies (37 were left on October 22, 2026), then $49. That is below MacClearings' $25, though above its $12.50 for the first 25 buyers.
• More compression formats. DiskBuddy handles MP4, MOV, GIF and WebM video in HEVC or H.264, and JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF and HEIC images. MacClearings makes HEVC video and HEIC or JPEG photo copies.

Where MacClearings is the better choice

• No option that skips the Trash. DiskBuddy's cleanup page offers permanent deletion as a separate choice, with a warning and a confirmation. MacClearings has no such choice anywhere, and a check that runs before every build of the app refuses any code that could remove a file another way.
• Caches start unchecked. DiskBuddy checks things apps rebuild on their own by default. MacClearings checks items for you only when they are safe to lose and won't come straight back, such as Xcode DerivedData, package manager caches and logs. App and browser caches are listed, and you decide.
• Space that lasts. DiskBuddy's Activity view totals what was reclaimed, week by week. MacClearings measures each cleaned place again after a day, a week and a month, shows in History how much stayed free and how much came back, and orders Suggestions by it.
• System Data in the app. DiskBuddy explains System Data in a web guide covering snapshots, caches and developer files, and points to its block map. The guide doesn't mention purgeable space, and the site describes no System Data breakdown in the app. MacClearings' Breakdown starts from what macOS reports, explains each part in plain words, treats purgeable space, snapshots and swap as space macOS frees on its own, and shows what it can't see as a number.
• What a folder is. DiskBuddy's inspector shows size on disk, compression savings, dates and contents. MacClearings' inspector adds a field guide entry, one of about 220, saying what the folder is, which app made it, whether it comes back and what happens without it.
• Named developer rules. DiskBuddy's cleanup page names categories: node_modules, build folders, package caches and simulator data. MacClearings' rules name the tools: 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. See the developer page.
• Put Back for one item. History lets you put back a single item as well as undo a whole cleanup. DiskBuddy's Undo restores a whole cleanup, and its Activity view offers Put back; its site doesn't say whether that works item by item.

What happens to the files you remove

DiskBuddy. You add items to a cleanup list and review it before anything moves. The review shows how much space will be free once the Trash is emptied, and system-critical paths can't be added. Items go to the Trash by default. Undo, on the message shown after a cleanup, restores the whole cleanup, and Activity offers Put back later. A separate option deletes permanently when you want the space at once; it shows its own warning and asks you to confirm.

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 full rules.

Price

DiskBuddy is a one-time purchase. As of October 22, 2026, it costs $19 for the first 400 copies, with 37 left that day, and $49 after that. A key works on one Mac at a time and can be moved by deactivating the old Mac; the same key covers the Windows version. Its terms say every release so far, 2.0 included, has been free for license holders, and refunds are offered within 14 days. There is no free tier: the app asks for a license key on first launch.

MacClearings costs $25 once, or $12.50 for the first 25 buyers, with one license key and a 30-day refund window. Details are on the pricing page.

Moving over from DiskBuddy

The workflow will feel familiar: stage, review, Trash, undo. A few things are different:

• MacClearings needs macOS 15 or later.
• Caches arrive unchecked. Check them yourself if you want them gone, knowing apps will rebuild them.
• There is no setting to skip the Trash, so freeing the space is always your last step.
• History starts with your first MacClearings cleanup. Scan snapshots don't carry over, but MacClearings can save its own and compare them later.