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Mac Cleaner – Space Cleaner. Mac Cleaner is the best Mac space cleaning software to remove junk files, memory, virus, adware, malware, duplicated photos, and uninstall applications to free up storage and speed up Mac performance. $49.95 $39.96 20% OFF. A free junk cleaner for Mac, AVG Cleaner has only two modules — disk cleanup and duplicates finder. The former will help you get rid of log files, downloaded file history, caches, and uninstall leftovers. The latter saves your storage space by deleting photo, movie, and file duplicates.

Cleaner One Pro is the best computer cleaning app that helps organize and optimize disk space usage, frees up storage and manages apps on your Mac or Windows PC. CleanMyMac is a powerful Mac cleaner, speed booster, and health guard, designed to help your Mac run at full throttle again. Remove large and old files, uninstall apps, and delete useless data that waste disk space. More free disk space.

When you work hard, you get dirty. True of humans, true of Macs. Over time, even the most powerful Mac generates lots of clutter — from caches to outdated apps to system files and leftovers. If you do nothing about it, your Mac’s performance will start deteriorating. In this guide, we discuss how to choose the best cleaner for Mac to optimize storage and keep your computer in a good shape.

What is a Mac cleaner and why do you need it?

Mac cleaners help clean Macs, as easy as that. Their primary feature is disk cleanup — removing unnecessary stuff from your drive to free up storage. By unnecessary stuff we mean system log files, user caches, language files, Xcode junk, and more. All of that clutters your disk and, in many cases, makes your Mac slower.

There are advanced Mac cleaners with extra capabilities such as malware tracking, real-time junk monitoring, duplicate finder, Mac cache cleaner, and more. We’ll discuss the full set of those in a moment. Before we get there, there’s one question that might have naturally popped up in your head.

Can’t I clean my Mac manually?

There’s a native feature in macOS that allows you to delete the files you haven’t used for a long time, empty Bin, and optimize storage. To access it, go to the Apple menu > About this Mac > Storage > Manage.

The problem with manual storage optimization is that you have to go through long lists of files and different folders to decide what can be deleted. First, you waste a lot of time. Second, you might accidentally delete something important.

What’s more, this feature doesn’t allow you to get rid of system files — and these are usually the trickiest. If you look at “Other” in the left sidebar in the screenshot below, you’ll see that “Other” files take the biggest chunk of space. You can’t remove them without a good Mac cleaner, unfortunately. Read the full article about mac disk cleaning.

The top 10 best Mac cleaner software in 2021

People who’ve had a Mac in their life for quite some time know how much value a good Mac disk cleaner brings. Modern tools offer automated storage cleaning combined with a malware cleaner for Mac, optimization recommendations, and lots of other stuff that saves your time and helps Macs live longer. Here’s our top 10 list.

1.CleanMyMac X

We’ll start with a market leader, the best disk cleaner for Mac, CleanMyMac X. It’s sleek, clever, and extremely protective of your Mac. CleanMyMac X’s Smart Scan not only detects all the files and system junk you should delete, it also finds malware and analyzes your Mac’s overall performance. If there’s anything hampering your work, CleanMyMac X will suggest a couple of tasks like flushing DNS or running maintenance scripts to speed up your Mac.

The app does a great job revealing all the tricky system files that are typically hard to find. But it’s so much more than that. Maybe your Mac is running slow because of some apps? CleanMyMac X will help you uninstall or update those. Maybe you’ve accidentally downloaded a malicious file? CleanMyMac X will let you know. It’s a modern maintenance and optimization assistant that every Mac power user should own.

Price: $39.95 or $9.99 per month with 200+ other apps in Setapp

Free trial: Available here

2.DaisyDisk

If you want to better understand what is cluttering your storage, try DaisyDisk. This system cleaner for Mac scans your disk (including any connected disks) and puts your storage on an interactive visual map. Different colors represent different types of files. It’s easy to notice what prevails and identify unusually large files.

While DaisyDisk has an awesome approach to showing your storage clutter, it’s not as good with cleaning it up. You’ll have to hand-pick what you want to delete, which is not an easy task for someone who doesn’t know what system files can be deleted.

Price: $9.99

Free trial: Yes

3.Gemini

Looking for a Mac storage cleaner that can free you from gigabytes of almost identical photos? Gemini is the best of its kind. Essentially a duplicate finder, this app not only removes copies, it can also detect files that look similar to each other and offer to delete them.

Gemini takes care of your storage on a long-term basis, with its powerful Duplicate Monitor. Whenever a new duplicate or similar file pops up on your disk, Gemini will ping you. This way, you can prevent files from piling up in the first place. Gemini doesn’t solve the problem with under-the-hood system junk, but it can be very useful as a storage optimization tool.

Price: $19.95 or $9.99 per month with 200+ other apps in Setapp

Free trial: Available here

4.CCleaner

CCleaner is one of the pioneers on the market of computer cleaner software. Developed by Piriform in 2004, it’s a cross-platform tool that was originally released on Windows computers and later expanded to Macs. It’s not as fancy and macOS-friendly as CleanMyMac X or Gemini, but it does what it says.

A paid version of CCleaner can find and remove system files, scan your Mac for duplicates, and even monitor and alert you about junk in real time.

Price: $19.95

Free trial: Yes

5.Cleaner One Pro

Another all-in-one cleaner solution is called Cleaner One Pro. It has a dedicated module for detecting large files — in case you want to quickly achieve the effect of clean storage by removing everything that is too heavy for your Mac. Cleaner One Pro can also scan Mac for malicious files, duplicates, and system junk, as well as suggest optimization tasks.

Unfortunately, you can’t test the app because it offers no free trial. You can download the free version but it’s very limited in functionality and doesn’t give you any well-rounded insights.

Price: $14.99 per year

Free trial: No

6.MacBooster

MacBooster is another Mac hard drive cleaner and optimization tool that looks similar to CleanMyMac X. You can remove system clutter and malware, and run optimization tasks upon the results of one scan. We compared the amount of system junk found by CleanMyMac X and MacBooster on the same Mac, and saw that CleanMyMac X does a way better job.

Still, MacBooster works as a budget tool to remove some of the system junk automatically. Plus, the app can detect malicious cookies.

Price: Starting at $2.49 per month

Free trial: Yes

7.OnyX

You could call OnyX a more advanced version of Apple’s native storage optimization feature. It can run a deep scan on your storage, remove system junk, and even help rebuild some broken indexes and databases. The app doesn’t offer any fancy scanning options, there’s no real-time junk monitoring or automatic cleaning. You’ll have to do it all manually.

OnyX is free and can be very useful for people who know the ropes. In other words, if you can differentiate between types of system files and love optimizing stuff on your Mac, OnyX is a must-have. For non-technical folks who just want a clean Mac that works, the learning curve is too steep.

Price: free

8.MacFly

MacFly goes beyond scanning and cleaning your Mac. It claims it can analyze how you work and provide tailored recommendations on how to optimize your storage. This could be both an advantage and disadvantage. The good thing is you don’t have to run scans often. The bad thing is MacFly might miss something if you change how you do things on Mac.

We’ve tested MacFly and it seems to have all the essentials — disk cleanup, shredder, uninstaller, and duplicates detection. The first smart scan was painfully slow, but you could probably bear with it since MacFly asks you to run a thorough scan only once.

Price: $115.70

Free trial: No

9.Parallels Toolbox

Parallels Toolbox is an all-in-one toolkit with many optimization options for your Mac. From custom alarms to hiding desktop icons to disabling notifications, Parallels Toolbox was created to make your daily flow a bit more productive. The arsenal includes a disk cleaner and a duplicate finder, both available in the menu bar.

Seasoned Mac users might argue that many of the Parallels’ tools are available in macOS. And they are right. The app just adds a few extra things on top and brings the essentials into one spot. Still, its disk cleaning feature works. So if you need something basic for system junk cleanup, you might want to consider it.

Price: $19.99 per year

Free trial: Yes

10.AVG Cleaner

A free junk cleaner for Mac, AVG Cleaner has only two modules — disk cleanup and duplicates finder. The former will help you get rid of log files, downloaded file history, caches, and uninstall leftovers. The latter saves your storage space by deleting photo, movie, and file duplicates. You can either choose the files you want to delete manually or follow the app’s recommendations.

AVG Cleaner will make your Mac a few gigabytes lighter, but we can’t call it a full-featured optimization tool. Without a malware scanner and performance monitor, the app will not help you figure out what’s wrong with your Mac, why it’s getting slow or acting strangely.

Price: free

Bonus app: iStat Menus

We usually start looking for the best disk cleaner for Mac only after things get dirty. Low storage notifications, loud fan noise, Mac freezing, or getting slow — these are all very good reasons to run a thorough cleanup on your disk. But why not prevent the trouble in the first place?

iStat Menus constantly monitors your system performance in the background. From CPU to memory load to disk space usage. If there’s any kind of unexpected behavior, the app will help you get to the root of the problem immediately.

Price: $11.99 or $9.99 per month with 200+ other apps in Setapp

Free trial: Available here

Conclusion

The best cleaner for Mac for all people, from beginners to experts, is CleanMyMac X. OnyX works great for geeky folks who love optimizing stuff manually. And if you’re looking for a very basic disk cleanup feature along with other Mac utilities, Parallels Toolbox might be your thing.

The best deal is to use CleanMyMac X and iStat Menus through Setapp — a perfect combo that guarantees complete security and cleanness of your Mac. Plus, Setapp has Gemini.

Setapp is a productivity suite with the best Mac and iOS apps for your flow. As of now, it has around 220 apps on board, all available for $9.99 per month. Give it a try with a 7-day free trial.

We clean our rooms and clothes so why not our Macs? But who can waste the entire day digging through folders and files? There are so many places like music, videos, apps and email downloads, and countless more locations on your Mac where junk and clutter accumulates. In 2021 cleaning your Mac is easier than ever. Which is why millions of people download free and low-cost Mac cleaning software.

To start off, we've made a quick comparison chart about the best Mac cleaners for Mac.

A handy cleaner may prove that your Mac is still alive and can actually perform at its best. In this article we’ve brought together some of the best Mac cleaning solutions around to clean, optimize, and maintain Macs that are available in 2021.

Top 12 best cleaners for Mac: Free and premium versions

1. CleanMyMac X

CleanMyMac X takes the first place with good reason — this cleaner combines features of both cleaning software and antimalware tool. Its Smart Scan promises a “nice and thorough scan of your Mac.” It does what it says, detecting junk like user cache files and system logs, checking your Mac for malicious software, and speeding up your MacBook. Looks like, there is a threat in my system, that I need to get rid of:

Frankly speaking, CleanMyMac X is Tesla Roadster among other Mac cleaners. And it does a great job revealing your junk and other clutter, uninstalling unneeded apps and their leftovers, and keeping your Mac’s system clean and optimized. Another pro is that CleanMyMac X is Apple-notarized, which means it’s safe for your Mac. You can download its free version right here.

Price: $39.95
Free version: Available here

2. Disk Doctor

Disk Doctor is developed in the UK and was awarded the 'Mac Gem’ award by MacWorld in 2013. CNET and other tech journalists also praise functionality. As of 2021, it still looks like a useful tool for Mac cleaning that removes junk slowing down and reducing the computing power of your Mac.

Price: $2.99
Free version: N/A

3. Gemini 2

Gemini 2 is the duplicate finder that allows you to free up gigabytes of storage and organize your files. In just a few minutes.

It quickly scans every corner of your Mac and weeds out useless copies. No matter what type of file it is: a photo, music track, or a doc… Gemini will definitely find it. And once the scan is done, you can remove the duplicates in a click. Or review results to make sure nothing important gets deleted.

If you remove something by accident, it takes just a click to put it back. And to make sure things like that never happen again, you can exclude specific files and folders from scan. Try out the free version right here.

The app has seen a major update in 2021 which included a real-time duplicate monitor. This new tool notifies you of duplicates the moment they are created on your Mac.

Price: $19.96
Free version: Available here

4. DaisyDisk

DaisyDisk gives you a visual representation of your Mac folders, making it easy to see what is taking up space and delete the folders you don't need. All you need to do is select a drive, DaisyDisk will scan it, then you can delete everything that is wasting valuable space. It comes with a free and premium version.

Price:$9.99
Free version: Trial version available

5. AppCleaner & Uninstaller

If you only need to uninstall apps on Mac, AppCleaner is a good pick. AppCleaner only removes applications, plugins, and widgets, which are again, small apps. AppCleaner works in a familiar drag & drop mode. Its interface is also clean and easy to understand for a newbie.

After feeding the apps to AppCleaner, you should visit the Leftovers section of the app to erase their remains. Why we place AppCleaner & Uninstaller among free Mac cleaner tools? Because it is 100% free. Whether you will fully clean your Mac using it, is a different question.
AppCleaner & Uninstaller is created by FreeMacSoft, also the makers of LiteIcon, an icon customizer for Mac.
Price: Voluntary donation

6. Smart Mac Care

If you launch Smart Mac Care, it will look hauntingly familiar to other free Mac cleaner apps. Not only features will be called the same, everything up to the fonts, will be identical to some other app you’ve just used. That’s not a minus, though. You can still free up a lot of space with Smart Mac Care.

Smart Mac Care operates by a logic of “scans.” There is a Junk Scan, Malware Scan, Privacy Scan, etc. Just like Mac Booster, Smart Mac Care removes duplicates scattered in various locations on your Mac. There’s also a Memory Optimizer feature that promises to free up RAM on your Mac. In a word, Smart Mac Care resembles every other generic product whose only difference is in packaging. This is supported by the fact that we couldn’t find any credible third-party reviews for this app.

On another skeptical note: to uninstall Smart Mac Care you have to enter your admin password. This is not the case with other Mac cleaners we’ve used.
Price: $56.62 per year
Free version: Demo available

7. Drive Genius

Drive Genius is labeled a “Mac monitoring software.” It’s a whole suite of tools that provide powerful disk diagnostics. It’s hard to list a thing that this software doesn’t do. You can scan for malware, secure-erase files, customize icons — it’s dozens of apps in one body. What makes Drive Genius unique is, probably, its search for corrupted files and inconsistencies on your drive. If your Mac is an old one, keeping it in good health will be easier with Drive Genius.

In a free version, you can use just a fraction of tools, notably a DiskPulse utility. This is an automatic Mac health checker that notifies you before your hard drive fails. Unlike Mac cleaners that merely scan, it is able to repair damage on your disks, which makes it a real deal. Be prepared that hard drive scan may take some time, but the results are worth it. The latest version of Drive Genius released in 2020 adds long-awaited support for macOS Big Sur.

Price: $299 for Professional edition
Free version: Limited Lite edition is available

8. CCleaner

Originally created in 2004 by Piriform, CCleaner comes with a free and professional version, focusing on businesses and business customers. CCleaner is a cross-platform tool, for PCs, Macs, Android, and it has a Cloud, Network and Technician tool, depending on what you need and the platform/software you use.

The premium version comes with a lot more features, including real-time alerts, free updates, and dedicated support. Although created for PCs in the early days, CCleaner does well to identify unwanted files on a Mac, so that users can select and delete the files and folders they don't need to free up space. As a cleaner for Mac, customers are pretty happy with the results of CCleaner.
Price: $19.95
Free version: Available

9. Sensei

The Sensei app is a relatively new app on the market, but it can be another useful tool for your Mac. The Sensei software developers call the app “Pro Mac Cleaner” on their website. I would call it a performance controlling tool.

Sensei presents a detailed picture of how your Mac performs. In the Dashboard, you can find out information about your MacBook, check your CPU’s current temperature, and see how much of your RAM is used. Cooling gives you exact information on your Mac’s fans' speed.

Its Clean option helps to get rid of user cache, logs, large files, etc. The Uninstaller feature allows you to delete apps from your Mac and remove their traces. It doesn’t list pre-installed apps from Apple, such as Safari or Calendar, but it shows every app you have installed on your Mac.

Surely, you can clean up your Mac manually, but using dedicated software will save you tons of time.

Price: $29 per year
Free version: Available

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Free Mac cleaners review

The following Mac cleaning apps are either completely free or donation-based. You won’t find any trial limitations here. If you’re looking for a no thrill basic cleanup, these free Mac cleaners might help you.

10. Onyx

OnyX is a french Mac cleaning solution developed by Titanium software. It weighs only 5 MB but that doesn’t mean its capabilities are limited. OnyX is a tool that programmers will have a lot of fun with. With it, you can peek under the hood of your macOS and automate a whole list of jobs, like disk cleanup and cache removal. You can even tweak the color of folders on your Mac, and even make them invisible. Deservedly, it's among the best free Mac cleaners.

OnyX is one of the best Mac cleaners because it cleans many specific under-the-surface files, like inner databases and logs. If you know what is XPC cache is, you’ll probably like this app. But for us, ordinary Mac users who came here for the design and glossy buttons, OnyX will require some learning time.
Those who use OnyX say it is stable and reliable. There is no dedicated customer service (because OnyX is free software), but you shouldn’t be worried. The only likely damage is you accidentally deleting files by yourself.
Price: Free cleaner

11. Clean me

This open-source app that only exists in the form of GitHub download is good enough for cleaning caches and logs. It’s so small its ZIP file weighs only 1.3 MB.
Clean me shows the size of each category of cache files. It analyzes such junk as Application Cache, User Cache, and more temporary files

The developer recommends that you start your cleanup with auto-selected options. Otherwise, you may delete something valuable by accident. So treat it as an analyzer and you’ll be safe.
Price: Free cleaner

12. Native macOS cleaner (Optimize Storage)

Your macOS has its own cleaner of sorts. You’ve probably come across it when checking your occupied disk space.
Go to Apple menu.
Now, click About this Mac > Storage > Manage.

In the sidebar you’ll see the main categories of files on your Mac. Going through Documents is likely to be the most fruitful option. Check the Size and click on Last Accessed. Now you’ve found all those movies gathering dust in your Downloads.
In the same way you can delete some old apps. This feature could be an alternative to a free Mac cleaner; the only problem is it works largely on the surface. You won’t be able to remove System Junk or analyze the grey areas occupied by “Other.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Can’t my Mac clean itself?

Your macOS also has a built-in Mac cleaner, which Apple called Optimized Storage. Though its capabilities are limited, it gives you basic directions on where to start the cleanup. But for a thorough system cleanup and removing malware, you’ll need a dedicated Mac cleaner app.

Can Mac cleaner apps delete my important files?

Typically, best Mac cleaner apps have a protection built-in. They will usually select only those files that are safe for deletion.

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Will Mac cleaners slow down my Mac?

Some cleaners try to get into your Login items, thus creating an extra burden on the processor. On a flip side, the reliable Mac cleaner apps might even speed up your Mac. They remove all the outdated junk files giving your Mac an extra boost.

Mac cleaning apps you should avoid

Above we've touched the trusted Mac cleanup solutions but there are many that work on the dark side. Malwarebytes lists Advanced Mac Cleaner Pro and similar tools as unwanted applications. Here are some signs that should warn you against using scam Mac cleaners.
Signs of Mac cleaner scam:

• 'Your Mac is infected' intrusive message
• An app is installed as part of different app
• An app finds 2323 (the number is an example) threats on your Mac
• Mac cleaner redirects your search engine page

Be safe and happy cleaning.