Latest version: 0.9.6
What's new in Prune
A plain-English log of what we've shipped — new features, improvements, and fixes, in the order they landed.
Asked once, not every scan
macOS no longer interrupts every scan asking for the same folders — and every category finally has a colour of its own.
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One permission ask instead of one per scan. Prune looks through Desktop, Documents, and Downloads to find large and long-forgotten files, and macOS guards each of those folders separately — so the same three questions came back every time you scanned. Prune now offers Full Disk Access once, up front, which replaces all of them permanently. The offer only appears if the grant is missing, and disappears the moment you give it.
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A Full Disk Access row in Settings. It shows whether access is granted and takes you straight to the right System Settings pane, so you can find it again after dismissing the notice. To be clear about what it does: Full Disk Access lets Prune look. It changes nothing about what Prune may delete — you still pick every file yourself.
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macOS prompts now say why. When macOS does ask for a folder, the dialog now explains what Prune is looking for there, instead of appearing with no reason attached.
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Every category has its own colour. The newer categories — VM & Sandbox Images, Orphaned Tool Caches, Old Toolchains, Git Dead Refs, Stale Downloads, and Build Output — were borrowing colours from older ones, which made the dashboard cards and the removable-space bar hard to read at a glance. All fifteen categories now carry a distinct colour, and it's the same colour everywhere that category appears: the dashboard card, the results sidebar, the clean-confirmation list, and the space breakdown in the header.
You choose which disks get scanned
Prune now scans your startup disk and leaves everything else alone until you say otherwise.
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A prompt before the scan starts. If you have more than one drive attached, Prune asks which ones to include — listing each by name, whether it's internal or external, and how much space is free. Your startup disk is always scanned; everything else stays untouched until you tick it. With only one disk attached, nothing changes and the scan starts straight away.
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No more surprise trips to your external drive. Previously every attached writable drive was pulled into the scan automatically, just for being plugged in — which on a large or slow external disk meant a long wait you never asked for. Background pre-measuring did the same thing quietly, and now respects your choice too.
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Your choice sticks. A drive you include stays included next time you open Prune, and one you unplug simply drops off the list. Explore Disk is unaffected — you can still browse any attached drive by hand — and what Prune is allowed to delete hasn't changed.
Behind-the-scenes maintenance release
No changes to the app itself in this release — it ships alongside internal site tooling we use to track how Prune is doing.
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Internal analytics dashboard. Added a password-gated dashboard for our own use, pulling in traffic and performance data, so we can spot issues and prioritize what to build next.
Windows: seamless background updates
"Check for Updates" on Windows now updates Prune without you having to leave the app.
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Background download and silent install. Instead of opening the installer in a browser for you to download and run by hand, Prune now downloads the new version in the background and installs it silently while the app keeps running. Once it's ready, you'll see a "Restart to Update" prompt — restarting applies the update automatically, no separate uninstall/install step.
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Takes effect from the next update. This is the first release with the new updater wired in, so upgrading to 0.9.3 itself still uses the old manual download — the seamless flow kicks in starting with the update after this one. macOS is unchanged for now; "Check for Updates" still opens the DMG download in your browser.
Prune now checks before it cleans
Clearing an app's cache while it's still running can cause errors, or the app can just recreate the files immediately. Prune now catches that before anything gets deleted.
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Running-app detection before cleanup. If any of the apps you selected caches for — a browser, Slack, Claude Desktop, Ollama, and more — are currently running, Prune shows you which ones and asks you to close them first. Close them and hit "Check again" and cleaning proceeds automatically.
Prune now watches your disk, even when you're not looking
Running out of space always happens at the worst moment. Prune can now stay in your menu bar or system tray, keep an eye on free space, and nudge you before your machine grinds to a halt — all opt-in, all under your control.
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Background disk-space monitoring. Turn it on and closing the window keeps Prune quietly running in the menu bar (Mac) or system tray (Windows). When free space drops below 1 GB, you get a notification so you can jump straight into a scan and reclaim space.
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Launch at login. Enabling monitoring also starts Prune hidden at login, so protection is always on from the moment you sit down. A separate toggle in Settings lets you control it independently.
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Automatic daily update checks. Prune now checks for a new version once a day by itself and shows a small, dismissible prompt when one is available — no pop-ups, no interruptions.
Know exactly what you're deleting
Bare file paths don't inspire confidence. Every item Prune identifies now comes with a plain-English explanation of what it is, whether it's safe to remove, and what brings it back.
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Plain-English explanations for every category. Each identified item on the review screen now tells you what it is, whether it's safe to remove, and how it regenerates — like "Chrome's web page and GPU caches. Safe to remove — Chrome recreates them as you browse." All explanations are built into the app; nothing about your files ever leaves your machine.
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Honest guidance where it matters. Items that take effort to rebuild — like downloaded AI models — say so, and personal files in Large & Old Files are clearly marked as yours to review, not app junk.
A clearer, safer cleaning flow
This update is all about making it obvious what Prune will remove — before it removes anything.
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Review before you clean. Pressing Clean now shows a summary of exactly what will be removed, broken down by category, so nothing is ever deleted without a final look.
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See what's selected at a glance. Every category in the review sidebar now shows how much you've selected out of what was found — like "1.2 GB of 3.6 GB" — with a clear checkmark showing whether all, some, or none of it is ticked.
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The Clean button tells you the size. It now reads "Clean 1.3 GB" — the total across all categories you've selected from — so there's no guessing what one press will do.
Smarter cleanup, live progress, and a public launch
Our first public release notes — here's everything that's landed in Prune so far.
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Prune is live for macOS and Windows. Find and safely clear out the AI models, developer caches, and system junk that quietly eat up your disk space.
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More junk Prune can find. Added detection for leftover snapshots, dependencies from projects you've abandoned, and old files you probably forgot about.
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Leftover files from uninstalled apps. Prune now recognizes junk left behind by apps you've already removed, so it can clean that up too — with a clear confidence indicator so you always know what's safe to delete.
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Real-time progress while cleaning. When you clean selected items, you now see exactly what's happening instead of staring at a frozen screen.
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Clearer warnings. If something gets skipped during cleanup, Prune now shows a heads-up so you're never left guessing what happened.
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Your Recycle Bin is off-limits. Prune no longer scans inside the Windows Recycle Bin — what's already there stays yours to manage.
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See it before you download it. Added real screenshots and a walkthrough of the app to the website, plus a few readability fixes.
That's everything so far — check back after future updates.