Frequently asked questions

MacMemory only deletes files macOS can regenerate, or files you explicitly confirm. It never touches your documents, photos, or apps.

No. You pay once and own it, including future updates.

No. You open it, you clean, you close it. No menu bar icon, no login item. MacMemory never uploads your files or file names, and connects to the internet only to check your license and for updates.

Technically no. Memory is RAM, storage is your disk. But when a Mac says the disk is almost full, most people call it running out of memory, so that’s the name.

Any Mac on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, Apple silicon or Intel.

You get an email at the address you paid with, containing the download link and your license key, within a minute of checkout.

Yes. 14 days from the day you buy, no questions asked. Email hello@macmemory.app and you get a full refund.

The grey segment of the storage bar in System Settings: everything on your disk that macOS did not file under a named category. Mostly app caches, Time Machine snapshots, old device backups, Mail’s attachment copies and leftovers of deleted apps. The full answer, with the manual steps.

Partly, and it is worth looking there first. System Settings shows how much space each category takes, and for some of them it will list files for you to review. What it does not show is what is inside System Data, or whether anything on your Mac still uses what is taking the space. MacMemory lists what is inside the grey block, one plain sentence per row, and it also asks the tools that own things whether they still need them. Docker's own records say which images no container uses and which build cache no build uses. Steam records when you last played each game. A project's downloaded packages are listed only when nothing else in it has changed for six months, and an old Android NDK only when a newer one is installed beside it.Each row says how it knows, none of them is ticked for you, and when there is no such evidence on your Mac there is no row.

Because macOS hides parts of your storage from apps by default: Mail, device backups, Time Machine snapshots and the Trash cannot be read without it. You can allow it in System Settings and revoke it at any time. Without it the app runs a limited scan and shows a lock on the categories it cannot read, rather than pretending they are empty.

Yes, in almost every case: what you tick is moved to the Trash, and stays there until you empty it. Four categories are the exception, and the row says so as soon as you tick it: Time Machine snapshots, the contents of the Trash itself, Docker images and build cache, which live inside Docker's own storage and can only be removed by asking Docker, and simulators you stopped using, which only Xcode's own tool can erase. Docker can download or rebuild an image again; volumes, where Docker keeps databases, are never listed. An erased simulator is still there, factory fresh.

No. Reading what is inside System Data needs Full Disk Access, and the App Store's sandbox does not allow it. The app is a signed, notarized download from this site, and macOS checks that signature every time it opens.

No. It frees up storage, not memory, and it does not touch what is running. A Mac with a nearly full disk can behave better once it has room again, but that is a side effect and not something the app promises.