Let’s be honest: your Mac is probably carrying around more digital baggage than you realize. It’s not because you’re messy or careless. Apps are constantly generating temporary files, downloads pile up in folders you forget about, and macOS itself installs things in the background that you never explicitly asked for. You don’t notice any of it until the day your storage bar turns red, or you go to save a file and get an ominous “disk full” message. That’s exactly the moment I found Purge. Purge is a Mac utility that scans your entire drive and shows you, in a clear and surprisingly friendly way, what’s actually taking up space. To get started, you download it, install it like any normal app, and open it. There’s no terminal, no complicated setup, no intimidating graphs. The first time I ran it, I felt like I was peeking into a junk drawer I’d ignored for years. There were caches I never knew existed, screen saver videos I hadn’t seen in ages, forgotten downloads, and leftover files from apps I’d deleted long ago. The app lays everything out in categories with sizes, so you can see right away where the big problems are. It wasn’t just a list of files; it was a story of every forgotten download, every impatient installation, every app I had abandoned somewhere along the way. You’ll notice a button labeled Clean Safe Items. That’s the one-click option. If you trust it, the app will go ahead and remove the things it considers completely safe—temporary files, caches, and other harmless clutter. I imagine it works perfectly fine, and if you’re in a hurry, there’s no shame in using it. But I recommend paying a bit more attention, at least the first time. Going through the individual sections yourself gives you more control, and it also teaches you something about how your Mac uses storage. You can always click the safe button later once you feel comfortable.
Start with caches. Caches are the kinds of files that apps create to help them work faster. When a browser stores images for sites you visit, or a design tool saves previews and thumbnails, or a streaming app keeps a temporary version of something you’ve watched, those are caches. They’re useful because they save time and bandwidth, but they’re never meant to be permanent. Over time, a cache that started as a few megabytes can swell into several gigabytes, especially if you use large applications or edit media. Purge lists every cache it finds, with the size of each one, and all of them are safe to purge periodically. That’s a nice feeling, because it’s one of the rare moments in computer maintenance where you can delete things without worrying. The worst thing that happens after clearing a cache is that an app takes a moment to load something that it used to have ready instantly. That’s an acceptable trade when you’re getting real space back in return. I cleared about five gigabytes in caches alone, and my Mac didn’t miss a beat. Around the same section, you’ll also see Apple’s Aerial screen savers. These are the beautiful, cinematic videos that Apple includes with macOS—slow-moving drone footage of cities, clouds, and landscapes. They’re gorgeous, but they’re also full-resolution video files, which means they can take up a surprising amount of space. The truth is, most people don’t use screen savers anymore. We lock our Macs, or we let the display sleep, or we just never look at the screen long enough for a screen saver to kick in. If you’re like most 21st-century people, those Aerial videos are just sitting there, waiting for a moment that will never come. Deleting them is easy, and you won’t miss them. I can promise you that.
Next, there’s a part of Purge called Dev Tools. At first glance, you might think this section isn’t for you, and for most people that’s true. It’s aimed at developers, who tend to have a whole ecosystem of command-line tools, simulators, and package managers on their machines. But if you use Homebrew, which is a very popular package manager for Mac, don’t skip this section. Homebrew is wonderful for installing software, but it also leaves behind cached installation files—old versions, downloaded archives, and formulas you already installed. Purge makes it incredibly easy to delete the cached files you don’t need anymore. It’s one of those cleanups that can save you several gigabytes, especially if you’ve been using Homebrew for years. For everyone else, the more interesting feature is the tool that shows you the largest files on your computer. This isn’t a summary of categories; it’s a straight-up list of the biggest individual files, sorted by size. When I looked at mine, the list was dominated by videos. Some were old screen recordings from tutorials I’d watched or made. A few were movies and shows I’d downloaded and long since watched. There was also one enormous disk image that I had created for a project and forgotten completely. It’s so easy to lose these things because they hide in Downloads or in random project folders. They’re often too big to even appear in normal folder views, so you never think to look for them. Purge brings them all out into the open. I ended up moving a few items I’d forgotten about off my laptop and onto an external hard drive, which freed up a huge amount of space without permanently deleting anything. I bet you’ll find something too—maybe an old game, a huge video edit, or a backup that doesn’t need to live on your internal drive. This section alone makes the app worth keeping.
The next tool in Purge is designed for uninstalling apps. I used to think that you could delete an application by dragging it to the Trash, and that was the end of it. But that’s only the beginning. When you uninstall an app properly, you need to remove not just the application bundle, but also all the other files it has distributed across your system. That includes your settings, preferences, caches, support files, login items, and sometimes even the things the app downloaded for you. If you delete an app in Finder, all of those extra files stay on your drive. They’re hidden away in folders like ~/Library/Containers and ~/Library/Application Support, and you’ll never find them by yourself unless you know exactly where to look. Purge’s uninstaller does the full job. It finds every file associated with an app, shows it to you, and removes everything in one go. I know some people are nervous about using a third-party uninstaller, but Purge shows you every file it plans to remove, so you can see exactly what’s happening. It’s the difference between throwing away a book and actually clearing off the whole shelf. While you’re in that area, you should also check the section that shows leftover data from applications you’ve already deleted. This is the most frustrating kind of clutter because it’s completely useless. You deleted the app long ago, but its files are still sitting there, taking up space. In my case, it was several gigabytes, all basically wasted. Some of it was from apps I’d uninstalled months ago, and I had no idea they had left so much stuff behind. I highly recommend checking this section and deleting anything large that you’re confident you won’t use again. It’s not even really a decision, because if the app is gone, the leftover data is little more than a ghost.
And since we’re talking about things you’re not using, there’s Apple Intelligence. Apple’s most recent operating systems come preloaded with offline AI models, and those models are not tiny. They take up real space on your hard drive. They’re what power features like notification summaries, writing suggestions, and the new AI-powered Siri. Some people genuinely like these features and use them all the time. If that’s you, then there’s no reason to remove them. But if you don’t use them, they’re just sitting there, quietly consuming storage and maybe doing a little background work without ever asking if you want it. The frustrating part is that Apple removed the toggle in macOS 27 that would let you disable Apple Intelligence through the normal settings. In earlier versions, you could just turn it off. Now, in the latest operating system, the option is gone. That’s a problem if you’re not interested in AI, or if you value privacy, or if you just prefer to keep your computer as simple as possible. That’s why Purge has one final tool specifically for Apple Intelligence. It can completely remove the offline AI models from your Mac. When you click it, you’ll see a list of installed models above a delete button. It’s incredibly straightforward. Each model has a size next to it, so you can see exactly what you’re reclaiming. Click the button, and Purge will delete the models and also prevent macOS from reinstalling them. It’s almost like the app is giving you back a choice that Apple took away. For me, this was one of the most satisfying parts of the entire cleanup. I didn’t suddenly hear angels sing, but I did feel a little lighter knowing that my Mac was no longer hauling around an AI brain I never asked for.
These features are exactly why I plan on keeping Purge around. It’s not one of those apps you run once and forget. It’s more like a seasonal checkup for your computer. Every few months, I open it, look at what has accumulated, and clean out whatever doesn’t need to be there. Some sessions are quick: a few gigabytes of caches, maybe an app or two I no longer need. Others are more dramatic, like the time I found several generations of Aerial screen savers, gigabytes of leftover app data, and the entire Apple Intelligence model all at once. But no matter how big the cleanup is, Purge makes the process feel manageable. Before using it, I avoided storage cleanup because I was never sure what was safe to delete. I didn’t want to break an app or accidentally remove something important. Purge removes that anxiety. It shows you what you’re deleting, gives you clear options, and lets you decide what’s worth keeping. It’s still smart to be careful, but the app goes out of its way to make care easier. It turns storage management from a guessing game into a simple review. It’s like brushing your teeth—a quick habit with a big payoff. So yes, I plan on keeping it around. It’s a great way to see what’s taking up space on your drive and then actually do something about it. More importantly, it reminds me that a Mac isn’t a black box. It’s a tool, and it works better when you take a few minutes to understand what it’s doing. If your Mac is starting to feel a little tight, I’d recommend giving Purge a try. You might be surprised at what you’ve been carrying around—and how good it feels to let it go.
