KachraClean

KachraClean is a free storage cleaner for the Mac, built for people who write code or run AI models on their own machine. On those Macs most of the space sits in project dependencies and model caches, and a general-purpose cleaner does not look there. Kachra is trash, in Hindi and Marathi.

Where it came from

It started as a clean-room study of a leading commercial cleaner, watched from the outside with the rules written down before any tool ran: no decompiling, no decrypting, findings in our own words first. On the same Mac, on the same day, that cleaner offered 17.6 GB. It never listed 43.9 GB of project dependencies in 120 folders, or 70.9 GB of AI models.

What it does

It scans without changing anything, and every item carries a reason and a safety level: safe, review or risky. Only safe items are pre-selected. It counts node_modules, Python environments and Rust build folders only beside a real project file, and sizes Hugging Face models one by one, so a file two models share is not counted twice. A Disk Explorer shows the rest of the home folder, biggest first.

It removes nothing outright. Cleaning moves items to the Trash, and the last clean can be undone. It refuses keychains, credentials, mail, cloud folders and the Photos library, whatever a scanner reports.

Why safety comes first

It asks for Full Disk Access, the most trusted permission macOS has, so it has to earn it. There is no network code and no telemetry. Before launch a security review found two high-severity ways for another program on the Mac to borrow that access. Both are fixed in 0.1.5.

Where it falls short

It is 0.1.x. It is ad-hoc signed and not notarised, so the first launch needs Open Anyway in System Settings. Docker’s own disk image stays risky and is never pre-selected; KachraClean shows Docker’s commands rather than running them. It only lists what it recognises, which on my Mac was about half the home folder, and it does not promise to shrink System Data.

It needs macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon or Intel. The download, the checksum and the install steps are on the KachraClean site.