I Made a Free Alternative to CleanMyMac in 200 Lines of Python

TL;DR

I got tired of "disk full" warnings and $90 cleaning apps, so I built MacCleanCLI - a free, open-source terminal tool that safely cleans your Mac.

The Problem 😤

My 256GB MacBook: "Your disk is almost full"

Me: Checks CleanMyMac price... $89.95

Also me: "I can build this"

The Solution 🎉

# Install
brew in future

git clone https://github.com/qdenka/MacCleanCLI.git
cd MacCleanCLI
pip install -e .
python main.py

# Run
mclean

What It Cleans 🧹

• System & browser caches
• Temp files & old logs
• Downloads folder cruft
• Duplicate files
• App leftovers
• Much more!

Key Features ✨

# Safe by design
PROTECTED_PATHS = ['/System', '/Library/Extensions', '/usr']

# Beautiful UI with Rich
from rich.console import Console
from rich.progress import Progress

# Multi-threaded for speed
with ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=4) as executor:
    # Scan all the things!

Results 📊

• Before: 12GB free space 😱
• After: 47GB free space 🎉
• Time: 2 minutes
• Cost: $0

Why It's Different 🌟

Feature	MacCleanCLI	CleanMyMac
Price	Free	$89.95
Open Source	✅	❌
Privacy	100% Local	Cloud Features
Terminal-Native	✅	❌
Customizable	✅	Limited

Try It Now! 🚀

# See it in action
git clone https://github.com/QDenka/MacCleanCLI
cd MacCleanCLI
python main.py --scan-only

Like it? Star it on GitHub ⭐

Questions? Open an issue!

Want to help? PRs welcome!

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What tools have you built to solve your own problems? Share in the comments! 👇

Comments

[Jamey]

Nice posting! Can we have a conversation asap?