MacClearings vs OmniDiskSweeper

What each app is for

OmniDiskSweeper is a free size browser from the Omni Group, the company behind OmniFocus and OmniGraffle. It shows a drive in Finder-style columns, sorted from largest to smallest and color-coded by size, so you can follow the space down to the files that use it and then open or trash them. Omni lists it among its Omni Labs tools. It started as shareware in 2001 and has been free since 2009. There are no cleanup rules, no suggestions and no charts, by design.

MacClearings is a disk analyzer and cleaner 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. Where OmniDiskSweeper shows you sizes, MacClearings also tries to tell you what you are looking at.

Where OmniDiskSweeper is the better choice

• It's free. For a quick look at what is biggest, it costs nothing.
• It's light. One window of columns, from a long-established Mac developer. Version 1.16 is native on Apple silicon and sandboxed.
• Older Macs. Version 1.16 supports macOS 11 through macOS 26, and older versions remain available for much older systems. MacClearings needs macOS 15.
• Run as root. You can run it with sudo to see files your account can't read. Files trashed that way go to root's Trash.
• Fewer steps. If you already know what the big folders are, a sorted list and a Trash command may be all you need, without suggestions or a review list in between.

Where MacClearings is the better choice

• Explanations. OmniDiskSweeper can tell you when a file belongs to a package installed with Apple's Installer. MacClearings' field guide covers about 220 folders: what each is, which app made it, whether it comes back, and what happens without it. It shows up in the Map's inspector, in tooltips, in Find and in Suggestions.
• A review list. In OmniDiskSweeper, an action applies to the current selection right away. MacClearings stages items first, and only Move to Trash in the review list moves anything.
• No way around the Trash. OmniDiskSweeper trashes by default, but holding Option deletes immediately. MacClearings has no such shortcut anywhere.
• Undo. History keeps every cleanup with Undo for the whole cleanup and Put Back for a single item, as long as it is still in the Trash.
• Suggestions. 28 rules cover caches, logs, developer data, old downloads, iPhone and iPad backups and Mail attachments, each with a plain explanation. Items are checked for you only when they are safe to lose and won't come straight back, so app and browser caches start unchecked.
• The rest of the job. Duplicates that always keep one copy, an uninstaller that finds an app's support files, video and photo compression, and developer rules for Xcode, package managers, editors and build folders (see the developer page).
• System Data. Breakdown starts from what macOS reports and explains System Data and purgeable space in plain words, with whatever it can't see shown as a number.
• Space that lasts. Each cleaned place is measured again after a day, a week and a month, so you can see how much stayed free.

What happens to the files you remove

OmniDiskSweeper. Since version 1.10, released in March 2018, the default action moves items to the Trash; before that, removal was immediate. Omni's 1.10 announcement says holding the Option key still deletes immediately, bypassing the Trash. There is no separate review step, and no in-app undo or history is documented. Anything in the Trash can still go back with Finder's own Put Back, which is part of macOS.

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

OmniDiskSweeper, DaisyDisk and GrandPerspective

OmniDiskSweeper is often weighed against DaisyDisk and GrandPerspective. All three show where the space went. They differ in the picture they draw and in what removal does:

• OmniDiskSweeper is free and lists folders in sorted columns. It moves items to the Trash by default, and holding Option deletes immediately. It needs macOS 11 or later.
• GrandPerspective is free and open source, or $2.99 on the Mac App Store, and draws a treemap. Deletion is optional, and deleted folders go to the Trash. Version 3.8 needs macOS 14 or later.
• DaisyDisk costs $9.99 for up to 5 personal Macs and draws a sunburst. It deletes permanently after a 5-second window to cancel. The direct edition runs on macOS 10.13 or later.

None of the three suggests what to remove or documents an undo history. MacClearings does both, for $25 once.

Price

OmniDiskSweeper is free, as a direct download from the Omni Group or through Homebrew. It isn't on the Mac App Store.

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 OmniDiskSweeper

Nothing needs to move. If you liked sorted lists, the Map shows the biggest items beside the chart, and Find searches everything scanned with size, kind and date filters. Give MacClearings Full Disk Access if you want everything measured; without it, macOS hides some folders, and MacClearings says what it couldn't see. And plan to empty the Trash yourself once you're sure.