Sweep

A native macOS app uninstaller that removes every trace.

When you drag an app to the Trash, its caches, preferences, containers and logs stay behind. Sweep tracks those files down, shows you the whole list with everything already ticked, and waits for your OK before it deletes a thing. It also digs up junk left over from apps you got rid of ages ago.

 

Features

• Pick an app and Sweep finds everything it scattered: Application Support, Caches, Preferences, Containers, Group Containers, Saved State, Logs, Cookies, Web Data, login items, and Crash Reports.
• It catches what dragging to the Trash leaves behind, including vendor folders with version numbers like Application Support/JetBrains/DataSpell2024.2. Matching is careful, so uninstalling Notion won't drag out NotionCalendar.
• The Leftovers tab hunts down orphaned files from apps that are already gone, grouped by app so you can expand a group and see exactly what's there.
• The Large Files tab lists the biggest files in your home folder, over a size you pick. It skips ~/Applications and ~/Library so it never offers you an app or its data. Nothing is ticked by default.
• Files go to the Trash, so you can put them back if you change your mind. Sort by size, name, or last used.
• If macOS blocks a file, Sweep tells you which one and why instead of quietly leaving it behind. When an administrator password would clear it, Sweep offers that as a separate step you have to approve. That path runs rm -rf as root, so those files are gone for good rather than going to the Trash.
• Plain SwiftUI. No dependencies, nothing phones home.

Install

1. Download Sweep.dmg.
2. Open it and drag Sweep into your Applications folder.

Opening it the first time

Sweep is open source and isn't signed with a paid Apple Developer ID, so macOS Gatekeeper blocks it the first time you open it. You only have to clear that once.

Option A: Terminal (quickest)

/usr/bin/xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Sweep.app

Then open Sweep normally from Launchpad or Applications.

Option B: System Settings

1. Double-click Sweep, then click Done on the warning.
2. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security.
3. Scroll down and click Open Anyway next to "Sweep was blocked", then Open.

Some folders (Mail, Messages, Safari) are locked down by macOS. If you want Sweep to reach those too, give it Full Disk Access in System Settings > Privacy & Security.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/Alyetama/Sweep.git
cd Sweep
./run.sh          # build (release) + launch

You'll need the Swift 6 toolchain (Xcode 16 or newer). It's a Swift Package Manager project that ad-hoc signs itself, so there's no Xcode project to open.

Sources/Sweep/
  App.swift            # @main scene
  Models.swift         # InstalledApp, RelatedFile, FileCategory, LeftoverGroup, LargeFile
  Scanner.swift        # app discovery, related-file matching, leftovers + large-file scans
  Remover.swift        # move-to-Trash, failure classification, admin-escalation fallback
  AppModel.swift       # @MainActor view model / background-scan glue
  Theme.swift          # brand colors, category glyphs, formatters
  Views/               # ContentView, Sidebar, Uninstaller, AppDetail,
                       # Leftovers, LargeFiles, FailureReport

License

MIT © Alyetama