PuliziaMac is a native macOS app (Apple Silicon, SwiftUI) that helps you free up disk space and keep your Mac clean and organized, free, open source, and with nothing running in the background. It launches only when you open it.
Table of Contents
- Download and Installation
- Required Permissions
- Security Principle
- App Sections
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Frequently Asked Questions
Download and Installation
- Download
PuliziaMac.app.zipfrom the latest Release on GitHub (opens in a new tab). - Extract the archive and move
PuliziaMac.appto the Applications folder. - On first launch, macOS may warn that the app cannot be verified because PuliziaMac is not signed with a paid Apple Developer account. To open it: right-click the app icon → Open, then confirm in the window that appears. This only needs to be done once.
Required Permissions
macOS protects folders like Desktop, Documents, Downloads, and Mail data by default. For PuliziaMac to analyze them, you need to grant Full Disk Access:
System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access → enable PuliziaMac.
If you skip this step, the app displays a banner with a direct link to this screen as soon as it detects a folder it cannot read.
Security Principle
PuliziaMac never permanently deletes anything. Every cleanup operation moves items to the macOS Trash — the only exception is "Empty Trash", which by definition is the final action. This means you can always restore something from the Trash if you realize you accidentally deleted a file you needed.
App Sections
Overview
The home screen displays disk usage (used/free) with a ring indicator, the total space freed by PuliziaMac over time, and quick access to all other sections. From here you can also export a PDF report (with preview before saving). The sidebar has a search bar to quickly find a section by name or synonym — for example, typing "duplicate" finds Duplicate Files.
Menu Bar
A menu bar icon shows free/freed space at a glance and lets you quickly open the main window — even directly to Automatic Cleanup — without keeping the app open all the time.
Automatic Cleanup
Runs the same safe scan as Cache and Temp Files (plus system DNS cache flush), but with everything already selected except the Trash: just review the list and confirm once, instead of going through category by category. Intentionally excludes duplicates and large files: those require manually choosing folders to analyze, as they may contain personal documents, not just cache files.
Cache and Temp Files
Per-app cache, logs, Trash, Xcode DerivedData/Archives, npm/pip cache, and downloaded
installers (.dmg, .pkg, .zip in ~/Downloads).
Intel Apps on ARM
Finds apps without a native arm64 version that run only through Rosetta 2, with a search bar
to find them by name. For universal apps (containing both Intel and ARM code), you can also
remove just the Intel portion to save space.
⚠️ No automatic backup is created: some apps — especially those with anti-tampering protections or downloaded from the Mac App Store — may stop working and require reinstallation. For this reason, Mac App Store apps are always excluded from this operation.
Duplicate Files
Searches for files with identical content (compared by SHA256 hash, not just name or size) within the folders you choose.
Large Files
Finds the heaviest files in one or more folders of your choice, with a minimum threshold selectable from 100MB to 5GB.
Disk Explorer
Folder-by-folder disk navigation — like DaisyDisk or OmniDiskSweeper — showing the actual size of each item, useful for finding space used anywhere, not just in the fixed categories of other sections. Available in List view (list) or Graph view (a ring proportional to size, with an interactive legend to select or navigate folders).
System Data
Items macOS groups under "System Data" in About This Mac:
- Local APFS snapshots from Time Machine (can be deleted immediately to free space);
- QuickLook preview cache;
- CoreSimulator cache (used by Xcode);
- Spotlight index rebuilding (requires administrator privileges).
SSD Health
Internal drive status with a green/yellow/red indicator, based on SMART status, model,
TRIM support, and available space. If you have smartctl installed (smartmontools package),
you'll also see temperature, TBW written, and power-on hours — data that Apple Silicon Mac
internal SSDs often don't expose anyway due to their non-standard proprietary interconnect.
Memory
RAM overview (wired, active, compressed, inactive, free) with a usage ring, and a
"Free Inactive Memory" action (equivalent to the purge command, requires administrator privileges).
The actual effect varies based on what is actually reusable at that moment.
Browsers
Cache for Safari, Chrome, Brave, Firefox, and Edge — only the ~/Library/Caches/... folders
that the browser itself can recreate. Never touched are history, cookies, saved passwords, or bookmarks.
Mail Attachments
Cache of attachments downloaded or opened through Mail.app. This is not the "real" attachments stored in the message database: removing this cache does not delete any emails.
Uninstaller
Removes an app along with its known leftover files: preferences, cache, application support, logs, saved state, and containers. If the app is owned by root (common for Mac App Store apps), PuliziaMac automatically retries with administrator privileges.
Login Items
Lists startup agents (user and system LaunchAgents) and allows you to disable them. Does not cover the classic "Login Items" in System Settings, which use an undocumented format from Apple.
Updates
Checks and applies updates for Homebrew packages and Mac App Store apps (via mas-cli, if installed).
For other apps, there is no generic and reliable way to check for updates: it must be done from the app's menu.
Settings
- Language: Italian/English, changes the entire interface immediately without restarting the app.
- Theme: System/Light/Dark, with accent color choice among 8 variants.
- Excluded folders from scans.
- Option to hide the icon from the Dock (the app remains accessible from the menu bar).
Keyboard Shortcuts
| Shortcuts | Action |
|---|---|
| ⌘1–⌘9 | Quickly switch between the first nine sections in the sidebar. |
| ⌘, | Open settings |
Frequently Asked Questions
Can PuliziaMac accidentally delete important files? No. Every cleanup operation moves items to the Trash instead of deleting them permanently. You can always restore them from the Trash until you empty it yourself.
Why does macOS say it cannot verify the app? Because PuliziaMac isn't signed with a paid Apple Developer account, which requires an annual fee. To authorize it, right-click the app and select Open. macOS should then allow you to launch it without displaying the same warning again.
Do I really need to grant Full Disk Access? Yes. Otherwise, macOS blocks access to folders such as Desktop, Documents, Downloads, and Mail, preventing PuliziaMac from analyzing them correctly.
Is it safe to remove the Intel portion of a universal app? In most cases, yes, but not always: some apps with anti-tampering protections may stop working. No automatic backup is created, so proceed only if you're willing to reinstall the app in case of problems.