tw93/Mole

💡 The CLI is free and open source. Prefer a native Mac app? Mole for Mac adds visual cleanup review, app updates, uninstall, maintenance, disk maps, live status, and a menu bar HUD. One license covers 2 Macs, with lifetime updates and a 14-day refund.

Features

• All-in-one toolkit: Combines CleanMyMac, AppCleaner, DaisyDisk, and iStat Menus in a single binary
• Deep cleaning: Removes caches, logs, leftovers, and orphaned app data to reclaim gigabytes of space
• Smart uninstaller: Removes apps plus launch agents, preferences, and hidden remnants
• Disk insights: Visualizes usage, finds large files, rebuilds caches, and refreshes system services
• Live monitoring: Shows real-time CPU, GPU, memory, disk, and network stats

Quick Start

Install via Homebrew

brew install mole

Homebrew follows Homebrew's supported macOS tiers. Use macOS 14 or later for the Homebrew path; older macOS versions should use the script installer below on a best-effort basis.

Or via script

# Optional args: -s latest for main branch code, -s 1.17.0 for specific version
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tw93/mole/main/install.sh | bash

Note: Mole is built for macOS. An experimental Windows version is available in the windows branch for early adopters.

Run

mo                           # Interactive menu
mo clean                     # Deep cleanup + already-uninstalled app leftovers
mo uninstall                 # Remove installed apps + their leftovers
mo optimize                  # Refresh caches & services
mo analyze                   # Visual disk explorer (or 'mo analyse')
mo status                    # Live system health dashboard
mo purge                     # Clean project build artifacts
mo installer                 # Find and remove installer files

mo touchid                   # Configure Touch ID for sudo
mo completion                # Set up shell tab completion
mo update                    # Update Mole
mo update --nightly          # Update to latest unreleased main build, script install only
mo remove                    # Remove Mole from system
mo --help                    # Show help
mo --version                 # Show installed version

Preview safely

mo clean --dry-run
mo uninstall --dry-run
mo history
mo history --json
mo purge --dry-run

# Also works with: optimize, installer, remove, completion, touchid enable
mo clean --dry-run --debug   # Preview + detailed logs
mo optimize --whitelist      # Manage protected optimization rules
mo clean --whitelist         # Manage protected caches
mo purge --paths             # Configure project scan directories
mo analyze /Volumes          # Analyze external drives only
mo analyze /private/tmp      # Review user-owned temporary directories

Selections made with mo clean --whitelist persist in ~/.config/mole/whitelist.

Security & Safety Design

Mole is a local system maintenance tool, and some commands can perform destructive local operations.

Mole uses safety-first defaults: path validation, protected-directory rules, conservative cleanup boundaries, and explicit confirmation for higher-risk actions. When risk or uncertainty is high, Mole skips, refuses, or requires stronger confirmation rather than broadening deletion scope.

mo analyze is safer for ad hoc cleanup because it moves files to Trash through Finder instead of deleting them directly.

Review SECURITY.md and SECURITY_AUDIT.md for reporting guidance, safety boundaries, and current limitations.

Tips

• Video tutorial: Watch the Mole tutorial video, thanks to PAPAYA 電腦教室.
• Safety and logs: clean, uninstall, purge, installer, and remove are destructive. Review with --dry-run first, and add --debug when needed. File operations are logged to ~/Library/Logs/mole/operations.log and can be reviewed with mo history. Disable with MO_NO_OPLOG=1. Review SECURITY.md and SECURITY_AUDIT.md.
• App leftovers: use mo clean when the app is already uninstalled, and mo uninstall when the app is still installed.
• Navigation: Mole supports arrow keys and Vim bindings h/j/k/l.

Features in Detail

Deep System Cleanup

$ mo clean

Scanning cache directories...

  ✓ User app cache                                           45.2GB
  ✓ Browser cache (Chrome, Safari, Firefox)                  10.5GB
  ✓ Developer tools (Xcode, Node.js, npm)                    23.3GB
  ✓ System logs and temp files                                3.8GB
  ✓ App-specific cache (Spotify, Dropbox, Slack)              8.4GB
  ✓ Trash                                                    12.3GB

====================================================================
Space freed: 95.5GB | Free space now: 223.5GB
====================================================================

Note: In mo clean -> Developer tools, Mole removes unused CoreSimulator Volumes/Cryptex entries and skips IN_USE items.

Smart App Uninstaller

$ mo uninstall

Select Apps to Remove
═══════════════════════════
▶ ☑ Photoshop 2024            (4.2G) | Old
  ☐ IntelliJ IDEA             (2.8G) | Recent
  ☐ Premiere Pro              (3.4G) | Recent

Uninstalling: Photoshop 2024

  ✓ Removed application
  ✓ Cleaned 52 related files across 12 locations
    - Application Support, Caches, Preferences
    - Logs, WebKit storage, Cookies
    - Extensions, Plugins, Launch daemons

====================================================================
Space freed: 12.8GB
====================================================================

System Optimization

$ mo optimize

System: 5/32 GB RAM | 333/460 GB Disk (72%) | Uptime 6d

  ✓ Inspect and repair supported system maintenance items
  ✓ Refresh eligible Finder, network, and database state
  ✓ Skip tasks that are unnecessary, unsafe now, or unavailable

====================================================================
Optimization Complete
====================================================================
Applied 8 optimizations
9 unchanged | 4 skipped | 2 unavailable
Optimization pass complete

Use mo optimize --whitelist to exclude specific optimizations. Path patterns work too, so you can keep a long-lived mounted disk image around (for example /Volumes/mail) without it showing up as a detach candidate.

Optimize results depend on the Mac's current state and available system tools, so the counts above are illustrative rather than fixed.

Disk Space Analyzer

Note: By default, Mole skips external drives under /Volumes for faster startup. To inspect them, run mo analyze /Volumes or a specific mount path.

Developer tools may leave large temporary directories under /private/tmp. Review user-owned entries with mo analyze /private/tmp; selected entries move to Trash only after confirmation. Mole does not automatically delete third-party temporary directories because build markers and age alone cannot prove that a checkout or worktree is disposable.

$ mo analyze

Analyze Disk  (302.1GB free)
Select a location to explore:

 ▶  1. ████████████████████████  47.9%  |  Home                       75.4GB
    2. ███████████               22.0%  |  User Library               34.6GB
    3. ███████                   14.2%  |  Applications               22.4GB
    4. █████                     10.7%  |  System Library             16.9GB
    5. ███                        5.2%  |  Old Downloads (90d+)       8.2GB  >3mo

↑↓→ | Enter | R Refresh | O Open | P Preview | F File | Esc/Q Quit

Live System Status

Real-time dashboard with health score, hardware info, and performance metrics.

$ mo status

Mole Status  Health ● 92  MacBook Pro · M4 Pro · 32GB · macOS 14.5

⚙ CPU                                    ▦ Memory
Total   ████████████░░░░░░░  45.2%       Used    ███████████░░░░░░░  58.4%
Load    0.82 / 1.05 / 1.23 (8 cores)     Total   14.2 / 24.0 GB
Core 1  ███████████████░░░░  78.3%       Free    ████████░░░░░░░░░░  41.6%
Core 2  ████████████░░░░░░░  62.1%       Avail   9.8 GB

▤ Disk                                   ⚡ Power
Used    █████████████░░░░░░  67.2%       Level   ██████████████████  100%
Free    156.3 GB                         Status  Charged
Read    ▮▯▯▯▯  2.1 MB/s                  Health  Normal · 423 cycles
Write   ▮▮▮▯▯  18.3 MB/s                 Temp    58°C · 1200 RPM

⇅ Network                                ▶ Processes
Down    ▁▁█▂▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▇▆▅▂  0.54 MB/s      Code       ▮▮▮▮▯  42.1%
Up      ▄▄▄▃▃▃▄▆▆▇█▁▁▁▁▁  0.02 MB/s      Chrome     ▮▮▮▯▯  28.3%
Proxy   HTTP · 192.168.1.100             Terminal   ▮▯▯▯▯  12.5%

Health score is based on CPU, memory, disk, temperature, and I/O load, with color-coded ranges.

Shortcuts: In mo status, press k to toggle the cat, c to cycle how many CPU cores the card lists (2, 4, 8, all), and q to quit. Both preferences are saved.

When enabled, mo status shows a read-only alert banner for processes that stay above the configured CPU threshold for a sustained window. Use --proc-cpu-threshold, --proc-cpu-window, or --proc-cpu-alerts=false to tune or disable it.

Machine-Readable Output

Both mo analyze and mo status support a --json flag for scripting and automation.

mo status also auto-detects when its output is piped (not a terminal) and switches to JSON automatically.

# Disk analysis as JSON
$ mo analyze --json ~/Documents
{
  "path": "/Users/you/Documents",
  "overview": false,
  "entries": [
    { "name": "Library", "path": "...", "size": 80939438080, "is_dir": true },
    ...
  ],
  "large_files": [
    { "name": "backup.zip", "path": "...", "size": 8796093022 }
  ],
  "total_size": 168393441280,
  "total_files": 42187
}

# System status as JSON
$ mo status --json
{
  "host": "MacBook-Pro",
  "health_score": 92,
  "cpu": { "usage": 45.2, "logical_cpu": 8, ... },
  "memory": { "total": 25769803776, "used": 15049334784, "used_percent": 58.4 },
  "disks": [ ... ],
  "uptime": "3d 12h 45m",
  ...
}

# Auto-detected JSON when piped
$ mo status | jq '.health_score'
92

Project Artifact Purge

Clean old build artifacts such as node_modules, target, .build, build, and dist to free up disk space.

mo purge

Select Categories to Clean - 18.5GB (8 selected)

➤ ● my-react-app       3.2GB | node_modules
  ● old-project        2.8GB | node_modules
  ● rust-app           4.1GB | target
  ● next-blog          1.9GB | node_modules
  ○ current-work       856MB | node_modules  | Recent
  ● django-api         2.3GB | venv
  ● vue-dashboard      1.7GB | node_modules
  ● backend-service    2.5GB | node_modules

Note: We recommend installing fd on macOS. brew install fd

Safety: This permanently deletes selected artifacts. Review carefully before confirming. Projects newer than 7 days are marked and unselected by default.

~/Documents/MyProjects
~/Work/ClientA
~/Work/ClientB

Installer Cleanup

Find and remove large installer files across Downloads, Desktop, Homebrew caches, iCloud, and Mail. Each file is labeled by source.

mo installer

Select Installers to Remove - 3.8GB (5 selected)

➤ ● Photoshop_2024.dmg     1.2GB | Downloads
  ● IntelliJ_IDEA.dmg       850.6MB | Downloads
  ● Illustrator_Setup.pkg   920.4MB | Downloads
  ● PyCharm_Pro.dmg         640.5MB | Homebrew
  ● Acrobat_Reader.dmg      220.4MB | Downloads
  ○ AppCode_Legacy.zip      410.6MB | Downloads

Quick Launchers

Launch Mole commands from Raycast or Alfred:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tw93/Mole/main/scripts/setup-quick-launchers.sh | bash

Adds 5 commands: Mole Clean, Mole Uninstall, Mole Optimize, Mole Analyze, Mole Status.

Raycast Setup

After running the script, complete these steps in Raycast:

1. Open Raycast Settings (⌘ + ,)
2. Go to Extensions → Script Commands
3. Click "Add Script Directory" (or "+")
4. Add path: ~/Library/Application Support/Raycast/script-commands
5. Search in Raycast for: "Reload Script Directories" and run it
6. Done! Search for Mole Clean or clean, Mole Optimize, or Mole Status to use the commands

Note: The script creates the commands, but Raycast still requires a one-time manual script directory setup.

Terminal Detection

Mole auto-detects your terminal app. iTerm2 has known compatibility issues. We highly recommend Kaku. Other good options are Alacritty, kitty, WezTerm, Ghostty, and Warp. To override, set MO_LAUNCHER_APP=<name>.

Community Love

Thanks to everyone who helped build Mole. Go follow them. ❤️

Real feedback from users who shared Mole on X.

Support

• Getting Mole for Mac is the most direct way to support Mole's development.
• If Mole helped you, give it a star, share it, or open an issue or PR.
• I have two cats, TangYuan and Coke. If you think Mole delights your life, you can feed them canned food 🥩.

These lovely people already did 🐱

License

Mole is open source under GPL-3.0, see LICENSE. A version you modify and share stays open under the same license, and if you fork Mole into your own product, to avoid confusion please give it a different name and credit Mole as the source. Mole for Mac is a separate, proprietary app, and Mole is here for the long run.