A native macOS app for finding and cleaning wasted developer storage, covering the space quietly retained by a wide range of developer tools: IDEs and editors, AI assistants, package managers, build systems, game engines, embedded toolchains, containers and cloud CLIs.
Reclaim scans a curated catalogue of known cache and scratch locations, shows what each one is, how risky it is to remove, and cleans your selection. Cleaning goes to the Trash by default, so mistakes are recoverable.
Optionally, add your development folders (from the welcome screen, the Projects section or Settings) and Reclaim finds git repos and regenerable artifacts inside them (node_modules, build outputs, virtualenvs, Pods), lists them by size and last activity so forgotten projects stand out, and cleans only the artifacts, never your code. Discovered projects rank alongside the regular catalogue on the overview.
Built with Swift 6.2, SwiftUI, the Observation framework, strict concurrency, and Swift Testing.
Download the latest Reclaim-<version>.dmg from
reclaim-app.dev or straight from
Releases, open it and
drag Reclaim to Applications. The app is notarized and updates itself via
Sparkle.
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Xcode & Simulators | Derived data, device support files, archives, simulator caches, SwiftUI Previews data, device logs, XCTest simulator clones, unavailable simulators (simctl) |
| Android Studio | Gradle caches, wrapper distributions, build-scan data, IDE caches, Kotlin/Native toolchains, SDK system images, AVDs |
| .NET & Visual Studio | NuGet global packages & download caches, orphaned SDK workload packs, Azure Functions bundles, Visual Studio for Mac / Xamarin leftovers |
| Game Engines | Unity package & editor caches, Unity Asset Store downloads, Unreal derived data (incl. Zen), Godot caches & export templates |
| AI tools | Claude Code caches, logs & transcripts, Codex / Gemini / Copilot / Qwen Code CLI data, Claude & ChatGPT Desktop caches, Cursor / Windsurf / Antigravity / Kiro caches, Cline & Roo Code task history, Continue index, aider / Goose / OpenCode data, Ollama / Hugging Face / LM Studio / llama.cpp models, PyTorch caches |
| Package managers | Homebrew, npm, pnpm, Yarn (classic & Berry), pip, uv, Poetry, conda, pyenv / asdf versions, pipx, pub (Flutter/Dart), Composer, CocoaPods (caches & spec repos), SwiftPM, Cargo, Go, Deno, node-gyp, rustup & rbenv versions, mise cache, Nix store (measured) |
| Containers & VMs | Docker VM disk, OrbStack / Colima / Lima / Podman machines (measured; cleaned via their own tools), Vagrant boxes, minikube cache, Rancher Desktop caches |
| Java & JVM | Maven local repository, SDKMAN archives, Coursier and Ivy/sbt caches |
| Web & JS tools | Playwright / Puppeteer browsers, Cypress binaries, Bun install cache, Electron caches, Corepack cache, nvm Node versions, Prisma engine binaries |
| Cloud & DevOps | kubectl, Helm and Pulumi caches, gcloud & Azure CLI logs, Terraform plugin cache, Firebase emulators |
| Embedded & IoT | PlatformIO cache, Arduino downloads, ESP-IDF toolchain archives |
| Other dev tools | VS Code (stable & Insiders) caches & workspace storage, JetBrains caches & logs, Zed caches & language servers, ccache / sccache compiler caches, Bazel output trees, pre-commit environments |
| Your projects (optional) | node_modules, JS build outputs (.next, dist), Rust target, SwiftPM .build, Gradle builds, Python virtualenvs & caches, CocoaPods, Carthage builds, found inside the development folders you add and proven regenerable by their marker files (package.json, Cargo.toml, ...) |
Every item carries a safety rating:
- Safe: regenerated automatically (build caches, logs).
- Caution: restorable, but re-downloading or losing history costs something (downloaded models, session history, release archives).
- Destructive: removes things you created (emulators, installed language versions).
Items Reclaim should not delete itself (Docker's and OrbStack's VM disks, Colima / Lima / Podman machines, Go's read-only module cache, Bazel's output trees) are still measured, but cleaning is delegated to the owning tool with clear instructions. Credentials, settings and other user data that live beside targeted caches (Claude Code's auth and plugins, kubeconfigs, signing keys, registry tokens and more) are structurally excluded through a registry of protected paths; a unit test forbids any target from touching them, and the cleanup engine refuses them at runtime.
- macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later
- Xcode 26 / Swift 6.2 toolchain to build
The project is a Swift package that Xcode opens directly:
git clone https://github.com/allwiine/Reclaim.git
cd Reclaim
open Package.swift # then select the "Reclaim" scheme and Run
# or, without Xcode's UI:
swift run ReclaimRun the tests with:
swift testFor day-to-day use, swift run is enough. To produce a proper .app bundle, an XcodeGen spec is included:
brew install xcodegen
xcodegen # generates Reclaim.xcodeproj
open Reclaim.xcodeproj # archive / export as usualThe app is intentionally not sandboxed: its whole purpose is reading and cleaning locations across ~/Library and dot-directories in your home folder. That rules out App Store distribution but keeps the UX honest: no folder-picker ceremony for every path.
Most locations are readable out of the box. If a scan row shows Couldn't scan, grant Reclaim (or your terminal, when using swift run) Full Disk Access in System Settings → Privacy & Security. Settings has a shortcut button.
- Scan is read-only. Nothing is ever deleted during a scan.
- Cleaning operates on the scan-time snapshot only. The scanner captures the exact deletion set (for cache roots, their children at scan time), and the engine disposes precisely those URLs; anything created after the scan is untouchable. What you saw is what gets cleaned.
- Trash by default. Permanent deletion is opt-in via Settings.
- Explicit confirmation with size and consequence before any cleanup, including a warning when a related app (Xcode, Android Studio, VS Code…) is currently running.
- Manual-only items are never touched; the UI physically cannot select them.
- Post-clean rescan. Numbers on screen are re-measured, never assumed; the summary counts only what was actually removed.
- Honest failures. Unreadable locations show as "Couldn't scan" or "N unreadable" (with a Full Disk Access banner) instead of quietly measuring as empty; scans stopped early are labeled partial; a clean pass can be stopped between items.
- Your code is off limits. Dev-folder scanning can only clean catalogued artifacts proven regenerable by a marker file; projects and repos themselves have no delete path, and
~/.claudeis refused as a development folder outright.
One CleanupTarget struct in TargetRegistry, plus its target.<id>.name/.summary strings (and .note/.instructions when present) in both Sources/ReclaimKit/Resources/{en,nb}.lproj/Localizable.strings — no other code changes:
CleanupTarget(
id: "example-tool-cache",
name: localized(
"target.example-tool-cache.name",
defaultValue: "Example Tool cache"
),
summary: localized(
"target.example-tool-cache.summary",
defaultValue: "Caches kept by Example Tool. Regenerated on demand."
),
category: .packageManagers,
safety: .safe,
pathPatterns: ["~/Library/Caches/example-tool"],
strategy: .removeContents
)A hypothetical example — the target.example-tool-cache.name/.summary keys must also be added to both locale catalogues.
Patterns support ~ and * globs (~/Library/Caches/Google/AndroidStudio*); paths that don't exist on a machine are simply dropped. Registry conventions are enforced by RegistryTests, and the required localization coverage by the localization tests, so swift test tells you immediately if a new entry breaks the rules.
Package.swift Swift 6.2 package (app + libraries + tests)
project.yml Optional XcodeGen spec for a .app bundle
Sources/
ReclaimKit/ UI-free core library (fully unit-tested)
Domain/ CleanupTarget, registry, artifact catalogue,
safety levels, status
Services/ PathResolver, DiskSizer, BreakdownSizer,
VolumeSpace, TargetScanner, BulkDirectoryReader,
ProjectDiscovery, GitActivityReader,
CleanupEngine, FullDiskAccessProbe
Support/ os.log categories
ReclaimAppCore/ UI-free app state: AppModel, CleanSummary,
CleanHistory
Reclaim/ The SwiftUI app: views + app glue (Sparkle
updates, login item, Trash, notifications)
Tests/ReclaimKitTests/ Core library suite
Tests/ReclaimAppCoreTests/ Orchestration suite (stubbed executors)
Tests/LocalizationLintTests/ Source lint for the localization rules
docs/ARCHITECTURE.md Design and concurrency documentation
.github/workflows/ci.yml Build & test on every PR and push to main
See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the full design rationale.
Contributions are welcome, new cleanup targets especially (one struct plus its name and summary strings in both language catalogues). Start with CONTRIBUTING.md, or propose a target without writing any code. This project follows the Contributor Covenant.
Please report vulnerabilities privately; see SECURITY.md. Anything that could make Reclaim touch data outside the confirmed selection counts, even if it isn't a classic vulnerability.
MIT; see LICENSE.