What's changed

The first public build of Cache Goblin.

Finds

• 25 groups of detectors for the caches, build outputs, downloaded runtimes and old toolchain versions developer tools leave behind: Xcode and simulators, JavaScript, Python, Rust, Go, JVM and Android, Flutter, Ruby, PHP, .NET, C and C++, Elixir, Haskell, cloud tools, containers and VMs, databases, AI models, editors, game engines, browsers and more.
• Orphaned iOS simulator runtimes left behind by macOS and Xcode upgrades, the ones Apple’s own storage tools do not show.
• Build outputs inside your projects: node_modules, target, build, Unity Library and friends, matched to the project that created them. Projects you touched in the last 30 days are listed but never offered for cleaning.
• Exported builds you forgot: .ipa, .apk and .dmg files in Downloads, on the Desktop and in your projects, grouped by app with the newest kept, and told apart from files that came from a browser or Slack.
• Caches whose tool is gone. Tried a tool for a week and removed it? Its cache is still found and marked “tool missing”.
• Folders that declare themselves regenerable with CACHEDIR.TAG are graded that way.

Grades

• Every item is Safe, Restorable or Risky, and the colored dot is the whole label. Safe comes back on its own, Restorable comes back with a download or a build, Risky might hold work you still need.
• One sentence per item on what it is, when it comes back, and what removal does.

Cleans

• One green button cleans the Safe items right away. Restorable and Risky each get their own button and their own confirmation.
• The confirmation sheet names the largest items, counts the rest, and says where they go. Restorable and Risky items move to the Trash, so they can be restored until you empty it.
• Cleaning a whole category takes only its Safe and Restorable items and leaves Risky alone.
• Where a tool has its own cleanup, such as docker system prune or pod cache clean, Cache Goblin runs that instead of deleting folders behind its back.
• Optional auto-clean of Safe items, off by default.

Lives in the menu bar

• The size that can be freed sits next to the clock, with an orange dot once it passes your threshold and a red one when the disk is nearly full.
• The panel shows the disk, the three classes and the top categories. Nothing runs between scans.
• Rescans every 12 hours by default, or whenever you ask, at low priority and only when the Mac is idle. Never on a timer.
• The full window when you want detail: every cache with its tool, version and size, and an inspector with the exact paths, copy and reveal, and the largest files inside.

Stays out of your way

• Your own caches are readable without any permission. Full Disk Access is optional and only extends the scan to the locations macOS protects.
• Nothing about your disk leaves your Mac. There is no account and no analytics.
• Scanning runs on a background queue with bounded memory and no polling, so the app costs nothing while it sits there.
• Available in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese.

License

• Scanning and inspecting are free, for as long as you like. Cleaning needs a lifetime license: one purchase for 2 or 3 personal Macs, no subscription, and every future update included.