This Totally Free App Can Free Up Space on Your Mac
Stop paying for disk cleaners. This open source utility safely clears hidden caches, leftover app junk, and even gigabytes of offline Apple Intelligence models.
This report explores a free and open-source application called Purge that helps users declutter their Mac computers. Purge provides a comprehensive analysis of the hard drive space usage and suggests specific methods to free up the space. Notably, it can delete Apple Intelligence's offline models from macOS 27, potentially freeing up over 10 GB of storage.
Purge is designed to tackle various types of clutter, including forgotten files like games, images, and videos, as well as cache files and settings left behind by uninstalled applications. These factors are common culprits in Mac storage bloat. The app operates with a list of known safe files to purge and ensures that crucial system files and user documents remain untouched.
Upon launching Purge, users will see a breakdown of what is occupying their Mac's storage. The app then offers the option to clean safe items, which most users can trust. Some recommendations include deleting caches, which are safe to remove periodically, Apple's Aerial screen savers, and Homebrew's cached installation files if not in use.
Purge provides a tool to list the largest files on the computer, likely videos or other media. Users may discover and relocate forgotten files, such as those forgotten off their laptop. Another feature is app uninstallation, which removes not only the application but also all associated files, including settings, caches, and downloaded content. This differs from Finder's deletion process, which may leave behind unnecessary files.
The app also checks for leftover data from previously deleted applications, which could amount to several gigabytes, as in the case of the author. Consequently, the author highly recommends checking this section and deleting any large, unused data. Lastly, Purge includes a tool to remove Apple Intelligence models from macOS 27. This feature becomes essential if users wish to disable Apple's offline AI models, such as notification summaries, writing suggestions, and the AI-powered Siri.
The app lists the installed models and allows users to delete them permanently, preventing macOS from reinstalling them in the future.
Written by urgent.news from Wired's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
