DiskPrune · Compare

DiskPrune vs CleanMyMac

They are not the same category. CleanMyMac is a paid subscription suite: malware scans, updaters, and a cleaner that markets large “cleaned” numbers. DiskPrune is a native storage instrument. Scan is free. Cleanup is a $19 lifetime license. The only mutation is moving approved items to Trash.

Price

DiskPrune is $19 once, up to three Macs you own or control, 14-day refund. CleanMyMac is a subscription (and often a Mac App Store upsell). If you want an antivirus-plus-updater-plus-cleaner bundle, that is their product. If you want to understand why the volume is full and then trash specific known locations, paying yearly for a suite is the wrong shape.

What happens to files

DiskPrune cannot permanently delete. There is no removeItem fallback, no empty-Trash call, no snapshot deletion. A dry-run sheet says “Nothing has changed yet.” The receipt reports estimated recoverable, moved to Trash, and storage immediately available as three different numbers — because they are.

CleanMyMac’s marketing treats cleanup as a cleaned-gigabytes event. That is a different trust model. We will not race them on a bigger number.

System Data, Xcode, Docker

DiskPrune names Xcode DerivedData, protects Docker.raw, and lists APFS snapshots without a delete control. Those three are the usual “System Data is huge” story. A suite that offers to sweep them in one click is offering to be wrong in a way you cannot undo.

Read System Data, DerivedData, and Docker.raw if that is the actual problem on your Mac.

Notarization, today

CleanMyMac ships notarized. DiskPrune’s notarized DMG is not published yet. Until it is, Gatekeeper needs Open Anyway. We would rather say that on the site than pretend the current build is Developer ID signed. Download status is the live sentence.