A menu bar app that catches runaway processes and reclaims disk automatically. It knows the difference between a memory leak and a build that's still running.
$29 one-time · 3 Macs | Voice $9.99/mo
Free version, no account needed · macOS 13+ on Apple silicon
Most Mac tools show you a graph and leave you to work it out. GuardMac acts, carefully.
One number, updated live. Click it and it tells you exactly which resource is costing you points, not just that something is wrong.
Memory leaks hide well: a process holding 19 GB can report 0.25 GB to ps. GuardMac measures what Activity Monitor measures, and acts before your Mac starts thrashing.
Build caches, package caches, stale logs. It shows you the total first and deletes only when you say so.
A swap file that's 90% full usually means nothing. GuardMac measures whether your Mac is actively paging, so it only warns when it genuinely matters.
Cleaning tools are dangerous because they don't know what you're doing. Delete a build cache mid-compile and the build fails. Delete a render cache mid-export and the export corrupts.
Free tells you what's wrong. Pro fixes it. Voice makes dictation seamless.
Pro and Voice are separate. Buy either, both, or neither.
A cleanup tool asks for a lot of trust. Here is how to check ours without taking any of it on faith. Three commands, ten seconds, on the copy you downloaded.
Apple ties the signature to a registered developer account. A copycat build cannot carry this team ID without Apple issuing them our certificate.
Notarisation means Apple scanned this exact build and stapled a ticket to it. The check below runs against Apple, not against us.
This checksum is read live from our update feed as you load this page, so it always describes the current release. If it does not match your download, do not run it.
Not with a general purpose cleaner. Xcode writes intermediate output into DerivedData throughout a compile, and removing it mid build produces errors that look like problems in your code. GuardMac will not clear a build cache while Xcode, Gradle, Vite, ninja, swiftc, rustc, cargo, an npm or pod install, or ffmpeg is running. It checks what is running first and stands down. Is it safe to delete DerivedData?.
No. Render files and optimised media are large, recently written and sit in cache folders, which is exactly the pattern cleanup tools use to identify junk. GuardMac will not clear any cache while Final Cut, Premiere, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Lightroom, Capture One, Logic or Photos is open, and never touches the inside of a Photos, Final Cut or Lightroom library. Cleaning a Mac while Final Cut is open.
Yes. The free version of GuardMac shows a live health score in the menu bar along with CPU, memory pressure, swap, disk and thermal state, and the heaviest processes with their true memory footprint. It needs no account and nothing expires. Paying adds automatic background fixes and thirty days of history. Memory pressure and swap, explained.
All of the monitoring, and manual reclaim. You can see what is holding your disk and clear it yourself, with the same protection against deleting something a running application needs. There is no trial clock, no account and no sign up.
Pro is not. One payment, three Macs, thirty days to get a refund without giving a reason. Voice is $9.99 a month or $89.99 a year and you can cancel any time. They are separate: buy either, both, or neither. Refund policy.
The monitoring runs entirely on your Mac. It checks for updates and validates a licence if you have bought one, and that is all that leaves the machine. Dictation runs on your Mac too; only if you turn on Smart formatting is the text of a dictation, never the audio, sent to be tidied. Privacy notice.
More of this in the blog.