PoofMac 💨

An open-source, AI-powered Mac disk cleaner — runs locally, no subscriptions, no surprises.

I was deep in a coding session when my Mac suddenly threw a "2 GB remaining" warning. I had no idea where the space had gone. I asked an AI — and in minutes it found gigabytes of Xcode caches, old simulator images, and stale build artifacts I never knew existed.

PoofMac turns that conversation into a proper tool. It runs a local AI model on your Mac, analyses your disk, explains exactly what is taking up space in plain English, and proposes a cleanup plan — which you review and approve before anything is deleted.

No subscription. No account. No data leaves your machine.

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Four interfaces — same backend

Interface	Command	Best for
AI Chat	poofmac --chat	Ask anything in plain English — best starting point
Desktop GUI	poofmac	Daily use, native macOS window
Terminal TUI	poofmac --tui	SSH, headless, developer preference
Non-interactive CLI	poofmac --cli	Scripts, CI, piped output

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Installation

Quickest — run without installing (like npx)

uvx poofmac --chat

Needs uv installed once:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

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Install permanently

With uv (recommended — fast, manages Python automatically)

uv tool install poofmac
poofmac --chat

With pip (standard Python)

pip install poofmac
poofmac --chat

With the desktop GUI (PySide6)

pip install "poofmac[gui]"
poofmac

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Install from source

git clone https://github.com/lesteroliver911/poofmac
cd poofmac

# With uv
uv tool install .

# Or with pip
pip install -e .

Configure your model

The first time you run any command, a setup wizard will guide you through picking an AI provider and saving your API key. No manual .env editing needed.

To configure manually:

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env — add ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OLLAMA_API_KEY, etc.

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Desktop GUI

poofmac

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  💨 PoofMac   Model: [gemma4:31b-cloud ▼]  [☐ Safe Mode]  [⚙]       │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  11.5 GB / 228 GB  [██░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░]  5%   Free: 217 GB           │
│ ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │
│  💨  You could free ~4.2 GB today — select items below and click Clean │
├──────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Activity Log            │ ☑  📦 App Caches    1.7 GB   ● Safe       │
│  💾 get_disk_overview()  │ ☑  📋 System Logs  127 MB   ● Safe        │
│     └─ done              │ ☐  📥 Downloads    777 MB   ● Review       │
│  📋 Plan ready — review  │ 3 items | 2 safe | 1 review | 0 skip       │
├──────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  [ Ask anything… ]    [Scan]    [Clean 2 items  (~1.8 GB)]            │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
F5	Start scan
Ctrl+A	Approve all SAFE rows
Ctrl+U	Unapprove all rows
Ctrl+Return	Execute approved deletions
⚙ button	Open Settings (API keys, model, safe mode)

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Terminal TUI

poofmac --tui

Full keyboard-driven Textual interface. Identical analysis backend.

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Non-interactive CLI

poofmac --cli                         # scan + show Rich table (no deletions)
poofmac --cli --model gemma4:31b-cloud # override model for this run
poofmac --cli --execute               # delete SAFE items after review
poofmac --cli --json                  # output raw JSON (pipe-friendly)
poofmac --cli --safe-mode             # never delete anything

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Safety

PoofMac has two independent safety layers:

1. Code-level guardrails (safety.py) — hard-coded path lists that are never touched, regardless of what the LLM says. No prompt injection can bypass Python code.
2. System prompt — the LLM is instructed to never propose deleting system paths, user data, or anything it isn't certain about.

Never automatically deleted: /System, /usr, /bin, /etc, ~/.ssh, ~/Library/Keychains, ~/Documents, ~/Desktop, ~/Pictures, ~/Music, ~/Movies, ~/Mail, ~/Messages, ~/Contacts

Requires your explicit approval: App caches, system logs, Xcode build artifacts, node_modules, Python venvs, Homebrew cache, Trash, and items you select in ~/Downloads.

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Model guide

PoofMac is built around local models — your data stays on your Mac. The 14–35B parameter range hits the sweet spot of accuracy and speed.

Ollama local (recommended — runs on your Mac, no API key, no data sent anywhere)

Install Ollama once, then pull a model:

ollama pull qwen3.6:35b-a3b   # best overall (MoE — only 3B active, needs ~24 GB RAM)
ollama pull qwen3.6:27b        # dense, excellent tool-calling (~17 GB RAM)
ollama pull qwen2.5:14b        # good for 16 GB Macs (~9 GB RAM)
ollama pull llama3.1:8b        # minimum — 8 GB Mac (~5 GB RAM)

Model	RAM needed	Notes
qwen3.6:35b-a3b	~24 GB	MoE: only 3B active — best value
qwen3.6:27b	~17 GB	Dense, excellent tool-calling
qwen2.5:32b	~20 GB	Proven reliable
mistral-small:24b	~15 GB	Good for European data
qwen2.5:14b	~9 GB	Minimum recommended
llama3.1:8b	~5 GB	Absolute minimum (8 GB Mac)

Cloud providers (optional — if you already have an API key)

If you have an Anthropic, OpenAI, or OpenRouter account you can point PoofMac at those too — but it's completely optional. The tool runs fine without any cloud account.

Provider	Model	Notes
Anthropic	claude-sonnet-4-6	Strong reasoning, fast
Anthropic	claude-haiku-4-5	Fastest, lightest cost
OpenAI	gpt-4.1	Reliable tool-calling
OpenRouter	any	One key for many models

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What it finds

Category	Risk	Notes
App Caches (~/Library/Caches)	SAFE	Rebuilt on next launch
System Logs (~/Library/Logs)	SAFE	Regenerated by OS
Xcode DerivedData	SAFE	Rebuilt when project opens
Homebrew Cache	SAFE	Re-downloaded on demand
Trash	SAFE	Already deleted by you
node_modules, .venv, __pycache__	SAFE	Recreated by build tool
iOS / watchOS Simulator Images	SAFE	Re-downloaded from Xcode
Large Downloads	CAUTION	Review each item manually
Docker images/volumes	CAUTION	docker system prune

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Audit log

Every operation is recorded to ~/.poofmac-audit.jsonl:

{"timestamp": "2026-05-03T14:22:11", "action": "DELETED",
 "path": "/Users/you/Library/Caches/com.apple.dt.Xcode", "size_bytes": 2147483648,
 "note": "User approved deletion via GUI", "_mc": "a4f7b9c2..."}

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Benchmark

Find the smallest reliable Ollama model for your workload:

python benchmarks/run_benchmark.py
python benchmarks/run_benchmark.py --fast    # 3 scenarios
python benchmarks/run_benchmark.py --local   # test local models

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Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

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Disclaimer

PoofMac is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind. See DISCLAIMER.md for full terms.

Not affiliated with Apple Inc. "macOS", "Mac", "Time Machine", and "iCloud" are trademarks of Apple Inc. PoofMac is an independent open-source project.

Always maintain a current backup (Time Machine or cloud) before running any cleaning operation. Every deletion requires your explicit confirmation — PoofMac never removes files without your approval.

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.

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Author

Built by lesteroliver — developer, maker, and the person who ran out of disk space mid-sprint.

• GitHub: github.com/lesteroliver911
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lesteroliver

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Built for developers who'd rather understand their Mac than pay a monthly fee to clean it.