alienator88/Pearcleaner

Pearcleaner

Website

The only legitimate website owned by me is https://itsalin.com. Anything else offering Pearcleaner downloads is either a scam or not affiliated with me. More details HERE.

Project Status: On Hold

As you may have noticed, development on the app has basically stopped since end of 2025, so I wanted to provide some context.

Between a new job, joining a friend who is building a SaaS company, and other life priorities, I no longer have the time needed to actively maintain or continue development on the project.

Another major reason is that I previously relied on my work MacBook for development. After changing jobs, I no longer have access to a Mac device that I can use for personal development work, which means I’m currently unable to build, test, or release updates for the app.

Because of that, issue responses, feature work, PR reviews, and new releases are effectively on hold indefinitely for now.

The project is not abandoned entirely, and I’d still like to return to it someday if circumstances change. For now though, I want to be transparent that active development is no longer possible on my end.

Thank you to everyone who has used the app, reported issues, submitted ideas, or contributed. I genuinely appreciate all of the support the project has received.

Status: On Hold
Version: 5.4.3
Download · Commits

A free, source-available and fair-code licensed Mac app cleaner inspired by Freemacsoft's AppCleaner and Sun Knudsen's Privacy Guides post on his app-cleaner script. This project was born out of wanting to learn more on how macOS deals with app installation/uninstallation and getting more Swift experience. If you have suggestions I'm open to hearing them, submit a feature request!

Table of Contents:

Features | Screenshots | Issues | Requirements | Download | Translations | License | Thanks | Other Apps

Features

Core

• App Uninstall • Orphaned File Search • Development Environment Manager • File Search • Homebrew Manager • App Lipo • PKG Manager • Plugin Manager • Services Manager • Apps Updater
• Drag/drop apps, CLI support, and deep link automation view
• List or Grid view with badges for web/iOS apps
• Finder Extension for right-click uninstall
• Pearcleaner self-uninstall and other options

Utilities

• Prune unused app translations, keeping only preferred languages
• Strip unneeded architectures from universal apps without requirement of lipo binary from xcode tools
• Sentinel Monitor: Automatic cleanup when apps hit Trash (~2MB RAM)
• Export app bundles and file lists
• Basic Steam games support

Customization

• Theme system with custom colors
• Include/exclude directories for searching
• Adjustable search sensitivity

Screenshots

Issues

[!WARNING]

• When submitting issues, please use the appropriate issue template corresponding with your problem HERE
• Issues with no template will be closed
• This is a personal/hobby app, therefore the project is fairly opinionated. Opinion-based requests (e.g., “the layout would look better this way”) will not be considered.

Requirements

[!NOTE]

• Full Disk permission to search for files
• Privileged Helper to perform actions on system folders

Versions prior to macOS 13.0 are not supported due to missing Swift/SwiftUI APIs required by the app.

Getting Pearcleaner

brew install --cask pearcleaner

Translations

If you are able to contribute to translations for the app, please see this discussion: https://github.com/alienator88/Pearcleaner/discussions/137

License

[!IMPORTANT] Pearcleaner is licensed under Apache 2.0 with Commons Clause. This means that you can do anything you'd like with the source, modify it, contribute to it, etc., but the license explicitly prohibits any form of monetization for Pearcleaner or any modified versions of it. See full license HERE

Thanks

• Much appreciation to Freemacsoft's AppCleaner and Sun Knudsen's app-cleaner script for the inspiration
• DharsanB for sponsoring my Apple Developer account

Some of my apps

Pearcleaner - An opensource app cleaner with privacy in mind

Sentinel - A GUI for controlling gatekeeper status on your Mac

Viz - Utility for extracting text from images, videos, qr/barcodes

PearHID - Remap your macOS keyboard with a simple SwiftUI frontend