Levo compared · Alternatives
Mole alternatives: Mac cleaners with and without a command line
Mole is a fast, free, open-source way to clean a Mac from Terminal. People look for alternatives when they’d like to see the list before anything is removed, when they want something that watches in the background, or when they want judgement on tools Mole’s rules don’t cover. This page compares the options.
Quick verdict
- Best free, scriptable command line: Mole.
- Best when you want to see everything, tick what goes, and have your own agent judge it: Levo.
- Best polished all-in-one: CleanMyMac.
- Best free maintenance toolbox: OnyX.
- Best for removing apps only: AppCleaner.
- Best for a one-off, in a project you know: asking your AI agent directly.
What Mole does well
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.
- Price: free.
- Good at: speed, scripting, and doing the lot from one command line, with a preview before anything is removed.
Details from Mole, checked 1 November 2026.
Mole’s rules ship with it, and you read a dry run as text. That’s ideal if you want to script it. It’s less comfortable if you’d like to see sizes and reasons in a window, or want a tool that tells you when free space is low.
Comparison table
“Not stated” means the maker’s page doesn’t mention it, not that it’s missing.
| App | Price | Where you use it | Who decides what’s safe | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mole | Free | Command line (mo); its page also mentions native Mac and Windows apps | Rules built into the tool | Dry run (--dry-run) and a whitelist |
| Levo | Two cleanups free, then a lifetime licence for 2 Macs | Menubar app plus a Settings window | Your own AI agent, checked by Levo’s guard | A guard re-checks every item right before it goes |
| CleanMyMac | From about US$3.33 a month (Nov 2026) | App with a menu bar companion | A fixed list of what it knows | Not stated |
| OnyX | Free | App window | Maintenance tasks built into the app | You choose each task |
| AppCleaner | Free | A small window you drop apps onto | You pick from the files it finds for an app | You choose what to delete |
| Your AI agent alone | Your agent’s own plan | A chat or terminal session | The agent, once, in that session | None beyond what the agent decides |
1. Levo: the same smarts, with a window and a guard
Levo is a menubar app. It watches disk, memory, CPU and GPU against your limits, and your own agent judges what’s safe before the alert. You see every item with its size and reason, untick what you want to keep, and Levo does the deleting. A guard checks each item again right before it goes. Levo also has a small levo command for setup and reading its state, with --json; it never deletes.
- Price: free to watch and ask, two free cleanups, then a lifetime licence for 2 Macs. The price is on the Levo page.
- Needs: macOS 26 or later.
Skip it if you’re on a Mac older than macOS 26, or you want a ready-made list with no agent involved.
2. CleanMyMac
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.
Details from CleanMyMac, checked 1 November 2026.
- 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.
Pick it if: You want one polished app for everyday tidying and you don’t use a coding agent.
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. Your AI agent alone
Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and other agents can look at your disk and delete what you agree to. They’re good at judging, because they can read a folder, work out what made it and say whether it comes back.
- Price: your own plan or API usage.
- Good at: judgement on things no fixed list knows about.
Pick it if: It’s a one-off, in a project you know, and you’ll read each command before it runs.
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?
- Mole: You want free, open source and scriptable.
- Levo: You want a visual list, your agent’s judgement and a guard on the deleting.
- CleanMyMac: You want a polished app with no agent.
- OnyX: You want free maintenance tasks in a window.
- AppCleaner: You only uninstall apps.
- Your agent alone: It’s a one-off and you’ll read each command.
Questions
Is Levo open source?
No. Mole is, and Levo is a paid app after two free cleanups.
Does Levo have a command line?
Yes, a small levo command for setup and reading state. It never deletes, quits or cleans.
Can I use Mole and Levo together?
Yes. They don’t conflict.
Is Mole safe?
It has a dry run and a whitelist, and its rules are public. As with any cleaner, read the preview before you run it for real.
Compared on 1 November 2026, from each app's own website. We make Levo.