Levo compared · Alternatives

CleanMyMac alternatives: 6 ways to clean your Mac

CleanMyMac is a good app, and for many people it’s the right answer. People look for alternatives for three common reasons: they’d rather not subscribe, they want something free or open source, or their Mac has things on it that a fixed list of known junk doesn’t cover, like build folders, emulators and coding agents’ leftovers. This page compares the main options on what each does well.

Quick verdict

• Best all-in-one with the most polish: CleanMyMac itself.
• Best when your Mac has tools no list knows (builds, emulators, models, agent worktrees): Levo, where your own AI agent judges what’s safe and a guard checks each item before it goes.
• Best free command line: Mole.
• Best free toolbox for maintenance tasks: OnyX.
• Best for removing apps and nothing else: AppCleaner.
• Best for seeing where the space went: DaisyDisk.
• Best for safe, simple wins with nothing to install: macOS Storage settings.

What CleanMyMac does well

By MacPaw. Its page presents CleanMyMac as an all-in-one app for cleaning, removing apps and keeping a Mac in shape, for macOS 11 and later. It’s polished and simple: one scan, one list, one button. It shows a 4.7 rating from about 3,300 reviews. It cleans what its makers have taught it about, so a tool it doesn’t know isn’t in the scan until an update adds it.

• Price: starting at about US$3.33 a month (Nov 2026), per its own page.
• Good at: an easy interface, a broad set of everyday cleanup and maintenance tasks, an uninstaller, and a long track record.

Details from CleanMyMac, checked 1 November 2026.

Its trade-off is the one every list-based cleaner has: it’s as good as its list. If your junk is a browser cache or an old installer, that’s plenty. If it’s a Gradle store, a simulator runtime or a pile of agent worktrees, you’ll want something that can judge unfamiliar folders.

Comparison table

“Not stated” means the maker’s page doesn’t mention it, not that it’s missing.

1. Levo: a list you tick, judged by your own agent

Levo is a menubar app that watches disk, memory, CPU and GPU against limits you set. When free space gets low, your own AI agent (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and others) has already looked, and Levo shows a list with sizes and a reason for each row. You tick what goes, and Levo does the deleting. Levo has a built-in list of known tools as a starting point, and your agent judges everything else.

• Price: free to watch and ask, with two free cleanups, then a lifetime licence for 2 Macs. The price is on the Levo page and rises as more people buy.
• Needs: macOS 26 or later. An agent is optional: without one, Levo still watches, notifies and lists what it knows.
• Safety: the agent runs read-only in a sandbox and can’t delete anything. A guard re-checks every ticked item right before it goes: open files, running apps, git work in progress, live agent sessions, recent changes.

Skip it if you’re on a Mac older than macOS 26, or you want a ready-made list with no agent involved.

2. Mole

By tw93 and contributors. Mole is a free, open-source tool you run in Terminal as mo: mo clean, mo uninstall, mo optimize, mo analyze (a disk explorer in the terminal), mo status (a live health view), mo purge (build artefacts) and mo installer. Most commands take --dry-run. Its page also mentions native Mac and Windows apps.

Details from Mole, checked 1 November 2026.

• Price: free.
• Good at: speed, scripting, and doing the lot from one command line, with a preview before anything is removed.

Pick it if: You live in a terminal, want it free and open source, and are happy to read a dry run as text.

3. OnyX

By Titanium Software. OnyX is a free maintenance utility: it verifies system files, runs cleaning and maintenance tasks, deletes caches, rebuilds databases and indexes, uninstalls apps, and configures settings in Finder, Dock and Safari. Its page says it puts a clean interface on tasks that otherwise need typed commands. There’s a version for each macOS release.

Details from OnyX, checked 1 November 2026.

• Price: free, with donations welcome.
• Good at: a free, long-running toolbox for system maintenance that doesn’t need a subscription.

Pick it if: You want free maintenance tools and know what each task does.

4. AppCleaner

By FreeMacSoft. AppCleaner has one job: drop an app onto its window, it finds the files that belong to it, and you delete them. Version 3.7 is for macOS 15 or later.

Details from AppCleaner, checked 1 November 2026.

• Price: free.
• Good at: being small, quick and easy to understand.

Pick it if: You only want to uninstall apps cleanly and nothing else.

5. DaisyDisk

By Software Ambience. DaisyDisk scans a disk and draws it as colourful rings, so you can drill into folders and see what’s taking space. Its site says only you decide what gets deleted, and it can show connected cloud storage too.

Details from DaisyDisk, checked 1 November 2026.

• Price: about US$9.99, once, a lifetime licence with minor updates (Nov 2026), and a free trial.
• Good at: making a full disk understandable at a glance, on any folder or drive.

Pick it if: You want to explore your disk yourself and decide each deletion with your own eyes.

6. macOS Storage settings

Apple. In System Settings › General › Storage, macOS shows a bar of what uses your disk, offers recommendations (store files in iCloud, empty the Trash automatically, review large files), and lists apps to delete.

Details from Apple’s page, checked 1 November 2026.

• Price: free, built in.
• Good at: safe, simple suggestions with nothing to install.

Pick it if: You want safe, simple wins and nothing to install.

How we chose

• Starting point: the tools people most often name when they look for this kind of Mac app, plus what macOS and an AI agent can do on their own.
• Kept: tools that are still maintained and differ on price, where you use them, or who decides what is safe.
• Sources: each maker’s own website, checked 1 November 2026, and for Levo the app itself. No paid placements, and none of these makers reviewed this page.

Which one should you pick?

• CleanMyMac: You want one polished, all-round app and don’t use an agent.
• Levo: You use a coding agent or developer tools, want to see and tick everything, and want the deleting guarded.
• Mole: You’re happy in Terminal and want it free.
• OnyX: You want free maintenance tools.
• AppCleaner: You only need to uninstall apps.
• DaisyDisk: You want to explore the disk yourself.
• macOS Storage settings: You want safe wins and nothing new to install.

Questions

What is the best free alternative to CleanMyMac?

Mole and OnyX are free, and AppCleaner is free for uninstalling. Mole is a command line tool, OnyX a maintenance toolbox. Levo is free to watch and to get suggestions, and cleaning needs a licence after two free cleanups.

Is Levo a CleanMyMac replacement?

For developers and heavy users, often yes. For someone who wants one button and no agent, CleanMyMac is simpler. They don’t conflict if you want both.

Does Levo need an AI agent?

No, but it’s what makes it stand out. Without one, Levo still monitors, notifies and lists the tools it knows. See Levo without an agent.

Are there CleanMyMac alternatives with no subscription?

Yes: DaisyDisk is a one-time purchase, Levo is a lifetime licence, and Mole, OnyX and AppCleaner are free.

Compared on 1 November 2026, from each app's own website. We make Levo.