Mole

🦡 Dig deep like a mole to clean your Mac.

Highlights

🦡 Deep System Cleanup - Remove hidden caches, logs, and temp files in one sweep
📦 Smart Uninstall - Complete app removal with all related files and folders
📊 Disk Space Analyzer - Visualize disk usage with lightning-fast mdfind + du hybrid scanning
⚡️ Fast Interactive UI - Arrow-key navigation with pagination for large lists
🧹 Massive Space Recovery - Reclaim 100GB+ of wasted disk space

Installation

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tw93/mole/main/install.sh | bash

Usage

mole               # Interactive main menu
mole clean         # Deep system cleanup
mole clean --dry-run # Preview cleanup (no deletions)
mole uninstall     # Interactive app uninstaller
mole analyze [path]# Analyze disk space (default: home directory)
mole --help        # Show help

Examples

Deep System Cleanup

$ mole clean

Starting user-level cleanup...

▶ System essentials
  ✓ User app cache (28 items) (45.2GB)
  ✓ User app logs (15 items) (2.1GB)
  ✓ Trash (12.3GB)

▶ Browser cleanup
  ✓ Chrome cache (8 items) (8.4GB)
  ✓ Safari cache (2.1GB)
  ✓ Arc cache (3.2GB)

▶ Extended developer caches
  ✓ Xcode derived data (9.1GB)
  ✓ Node.js cache (4 items) (14.2GB)
  ✓ VS Code cache (1.4GB)

▶ Applications
  ✓ JetBrains cache (3.8GB)
  ✓ Slack cache (2.2GB)
  ✓ Discord cache (1.8GB)

====================================================================
🎉 CLEANUP COMPLETE!
💾 Space freed: 95.50GB | Free space now: 223.5GB
📊 Files cleaned: 6420 | Categories processed: 6
====================================================================

Smart App Uninstaller

$ mole uninstall

Select Apps to Remove

▶ ☑ Adobe Creative Cloud      (12.4G) | Old
  ☐ WeChat                    (2.1G) | Recent
  ☐ Final Cut Pro             (3.8G) | Recent

🗑️  Uninstalling: Adobe Creative Cloud
  ✓ Removed application
  ✓ Cleaned 45 related files

====================================================================
🎉 UNINSTALLATION COMPLETE!
🗑️ Apps uninstalled: 1 | Space freed: 12.4GB
====================================================================

Disk Space Analyzer

# Quick start - explore your home directory
$ mole analyze

# View all disk volumes and major locations
$ mole analyze --all

💾 Disk Volumes & Locations

  TYPE  SIZE        LOCATION
  ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
▶ 💿  245.3GB     Macintosh HD (Root)
  🏠  89.2GB      ~
  📚  45.1GB      ~/Library
  📁  33.7GB      ~/Downloads
  📁  18.4GB      ~/Documents
  🔌  128.0GB     External Drive

# Explore specific directory with progress bar
$ mole analyze ~/Downloads

  📊 [████████████] 100% (25/25)  ← Real-time scanning progress

📊 Disk Space Explorer

  Current: ~/Downloads
  ↑/↓: Navigate | → / Enter: Open folder | ← / Backspace: Back | q: Quit

  Items (sorted by size):

### Dry Run Preview

Before actually deleting, you can preview what would be removed:

```bash
mole clean --dry-run

In interactive menu: select Clean System and press d instead of Enter.

Sample output:

$ mole clean --dry-run

🧪 Dry Run mode: showing what would be removed (no deletions).

▶ System essentials
  → User app cache (45.2GB, dry)
  → User app logs (2.1GB, dry)
  → Trash (12.3GB, dry)

▶ Browser cleanup
  → Chrome cache (8.4GB, dry)
  → Safari cache (2.1GB, dry)

====================================================================
🧪 DRY RUN COMPLETE!
💾 Potential reclaimable space: 72.00GB (no changes made) | Free space now: 223.5GB
====================================================================

TYPE SIZE NAME ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ▶ 📁 33.72GB materials ← Use arrow keys to select 📁 5.67GB learning 📁 4.50GB projects 🎬 1.68GB recording.mov ← Files can't be opened 🎬 1.58GB presentation.mov 📦 1.20GB OldInstaller.dmg 📁 2.22GB shared 📁 1.78GB recent ... and 12 more items

Press Enter on "materials" folder to drill down:

📊 Disk Space Explorer

Current: ~/Downloads/materials ↑/↓: Navigate | → / Enter: Open folder | ← / Backspace: Back | q: Quit

Items (sorted by size):

▶ 📁 15.2GB videos ← Keep drilling down 📁 10.1GB documents 📁 6.8GB images 🎬 2.5GB demo.mov


**Interactive Navigation:**

- **Instant startup** - no waiting for initial scan
- **Real-time progress** - visual progress bar when scanning (10+ directories)
- **All volumes view** - `--all` flag shows all disks and major locations
- **Files and folders mixed together**, sorted by size (largest first)
- Shows **top 16 items** per directory (largest items only)
- Use **↑/↓** arrow keys to navigate (green arrow ▶ shows selection)
- Press **Enter** on a 📁 folder to drill down into it
- Press **Backspace** or **←** to go back to parent directory
- Press **q** to quit at any time
- **Color coding**: Red folders >10GB, Yellow >1GB, Blue <1GB
- Files (📦🎬📄🖼️📊) are shown but can't be opened (only folders)

**Performance:**
- **Fast scanning** - real-time progress bar for large directories (10+ folders)
- **Smart caching** - sizes are calculated once and cached during navigation
- **Top 16 only** - shows largest items first, keeps interface clean and fast

## What Mole Cleans

| Category | Targets | Typical Recovery |
|----------|---------|------------------|
| **System** | App caches, logs, trash, crash reports | 20-50GB |
| **Browsers** | Safari, Chrome, Edge, Arc, Firefox cache | 5-15GB |
| **Developer** | npm, pip, Docker, Homebrew, Xcode | 15-40GB |
| **Apps** | Slack, Discord, Teams, Notion cache | 3-10GB |

## What Mole Uninstalls

| Component | Files Removed | Examples |
|-----------|--------------|----------|
| **App Bundle** | Main .app executable | `/Applications/App.app` |
| **Support Data** | App-specific user data | `~/Library/Application Support/AppName` |
| **Cache Files** | Temporary & cache data | `~/Library/Caches/com.company.app` |
| **Preferences** | Settings & config files | `~/Library/Preferences/com.app.plist` |
| **Logs & Reports** | Crash reports & logs | `~/Library/Logs/AppName` |
| **Containers** | Sandboxed app data | `~/Library/Containers/com.app.id` |

## Support

If Mole helps you recover disk space, star this repository and share with fellow Mac users. Report issues via [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/tw93/mole/issues).

I have two cats, you can <a href="https://miaoyan.app/cats.html?name=Mole" target="_blank">feed them canned food</a> if you'd like.

## License

MIT License - feel free to enjoy and participate in open source.

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