A macOS menu bar app for inspecting and cleaning developer caches stored in your Home folder.
DevCacheCleaner scans common cache-heavy directories, shows how much disk space they use, and lets you clean one category or all supported categories with live progress feedback.
If you want to reclaim storage used by Xcode, Gradle, CocoaPods, npm, browsers, and other development tools without manually digging through ~/Library and hidden folders, this project is built for that workflow.
DevCacheCleaner keeps the scope intentionally focused:
- It only scans paths defined in the app configuration
- It works inside the user Home directory
- It asks for explicit Home-folder access before reading or deleting anything
- It shows cleanup progress while files are being removed
- Menu bar utility built with SwiftUI
- Security-scoped access to the user Home directory
- Per-category storage overview
- Single-category cleanup
- Clean-all workflow across all non-empty categories
- Cleanup progress window with live deletion feedback
- Automatic refresh when watched cache folders change
- The app requests access to your Home folder and stores a security-scoped bookmark.
- Storage categories are built from configured paths in
Constants.swift. - Each category is scanned and displayed in the main menu bar window.
- Folder changes are monitored so affected categories can refresh automatically.
- Cleanup runs for one category or all non-empty categories and reports progress in a separate window.
- Open
DevCacheCleaner.xcodeproj - Select the
DevCacheCleanerscheme - Run the app
The app launches from the macOS menu bar and opens a secondary window during cleanup to display progress.
The project follows a simple layered structure:
Common: shared constants, managers, utilities, extensions, dependency containerData: repository implementationsDomain: entities, repository protocols, and use casesPresentation: SwiftUI views, view models, and shared UI stateDevCacheCleanerTests: use case, mock, and view model tests
Main behavior is driven by focused domain use cases such as:
LoadStorageOverviewUseCaseRefreshStorageCategoryUseCaseCleanStorageCategoryUseCaseCleanAllStorageCategoriesUseCaseReadDiskSpaceUseCaseObserveDiskChangesUseCase
DevCacheCleaner/
├── DevCacheCleanerApp.swift # Menu bar app entry and window scenes
├── Assets.xcassets/ # App icon and in-app artwork
├── Common/
│ ├── Extensions/ # Shared helpers for URL, storage sizes, collections, colors
│ ├── Managers/ # File-system, monitoring, and Home-access integrations
│ └── Utils/ # Constants, alerts, parameters, shared utilities
├── Data/
│ └── Repositories/ # Repository implementations
├── Domain/
│ ├── Entities/ # Storage models and cleanup progress events
│ ├── Repositories/ # Repository protocols
│ └── UseCases/
│ ├── Cleanup/ # Clean one category or all categories
│ ├── HomeAccess/ # Security-scoped Home-folder access
│ ├── Monitoring/ # Folder change observation
│ └── Storage/ # Build, load, refresh, and read storage data
├── Presentation/
│ ├── Stores/ # Shared progress state for the cleanup window
│ ├── Views/ # Reusable SwiftUI views
│ └── ... # Home/progress views and view models
└── DevCacheCleanerTests/
├── UseCase/ # Domain use case tests
├── ViewModel/ # Presentation view model tests
├── mock/ # Repository mocks
└── Utils/ # Shared test fixtures and async helpers
DevCacheCleaner ships with built-in cleanup categories defined in
Constants.swift. Each one
groups a set of cache paths inside the user Home directory and is scanned,
displayed, and cleaned as a single category in the app.
| Category | Typical Targets | Example Paths |
|---|---|---|
| IDE Caches | VS Code cache data and workspace storage | ~/Library/Application Support/Code/Cache, ~/Library/Application Support/Code/CachedData, ~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/workspaceStorage |
| CocoaPods Caches | CocoaPods specs repos and cache folders | ~/.cocoapods/repos, ~/Library/Caches/CocoaPods |
| npm and Yarn Caches | Node package manager caches | ~/.npm-cache-user/_cacache, ~/Library/Caches/Yarn |
| Android and Gradle Caches | Gradle caches, daemon data, Android Studio cache roots | ~/.gradle/caches, ~/.gradle/daemon, ~/Library/Caches/Google, ~/Library/Caches/JetBrains |
| Xcode Caches and DerivedData | DerivedData, Archives, simulator data, Xcode caches | ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData, ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives, ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices |
| Browser Caches | Chrome, Brave, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Opera caches | ~/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome, ~/Library/Caches/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser, ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari |
| Flutter and pub-cache | Flutter and Dart package cache data | ~/.pub-cache |
Some built-in categories use prefix-based matching. For example, the
Android/Gradle category only targets AndroidStudio* directories inside
certain JetBrains and Google cache roots.
- The app only cleans paths explicitly listed in
Constants - Some configured paths use prefix matching so only specific child directories are removed
- Cleanup deletes cache contents and cannot be undone
- Backing up anything important before cleaning is still the safer choice
The source code in this repository is licensed under GPL-3.0-only. See
LICENSE.
The project name, logos, icon assets, and official branding are not granted
under the GPL code license. See TRADEMARKS.md.
Official Mac App Store releases are published by Karim Angama.