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The desktop app

Install

Download the file for your system from the latest release. Each release also has diskdiet-app_checksums.txt and build provenance you can check with gh attestation verify <file> --repo roystondwork-dev/diskdiet.

macOS

  1. Open diskdiet-app_<version>_macos_universal.dmg and drag diskdiet to Applications.
  2. Open diskdiet. macOS says it can't check the app for malicious software, because the app isn't notarized by Apple yet. Click Done.
  3. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down to the message about diskdiet, and click Open Anyway. You only do this once.

Prefer the terminal? xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/diskdiet.app does the same.

The first scan may make macOS ask whether diskdiet may access folders such as Desktop or Documents. Allow it if your projects live there, so it can find their node_modules.

Windows

Run diskdiet-app_<version>_windows_amd64_setup.exe. It installs diskdiet for your user only, so it doesn't need administrator rights. Because the installer isn't code-signed yet, SmartScreen may warn you: click More info → Run anyway.

The app needs Microsoft Edge WebView2, which is built into Windows 10 and 11.

Linux

chmod +x diskdiet-app_<version>_linux_x86_64.AppImage
./diskdiet-app_<version>_linux_x86_64.AppImage

It needs GTK 3 and WebKit2GTK 4.1, which most desktop distributions include.

Use

The app scans when it opens. You'll see how much space can be freed, then a row for each cache:

  • Count as old chooses what's removable: things unused for 7, 30 or 90 days, or everything.
  • Tick or untick a row to include it. Package caches start ticked; Docker, node_modules and target folders wait until you tick them. For node_modules, open the list of projects and untick any you want to keep.
  • Docker volumes are kept unless you tick Also remove unused volumes.
  • Move to the Trash instead of deleting (on the node_modules and target rows) sends project folders to the Trash, so you can put them back; their space is freed when you empty the Trash. The choice is remembered.
  • Click a folder name to show it in Finder, Explorer or your file manager.

Free … shows exactly what will be removed and asks before doing anything. The app follows the same safety rules as the CLI: it removes only what the scan showed, never outside a cache folder, and skips a cache while its package manager is installing.

The menu bar / tray icon

diskdiet keeps a small icon in the macOS menu bar (or the Windows and Linux notification area) after you close its window. Every 6 hours it checks your caches in the background, and its menu shows how much can be freed.

  • Notify me when sends a notification when more than 5, 10 (the default), 20 or 50 GB can be freed, or never. It reminds you at most once a week, unless the amount grows a lot. On macOS, the amount also appears beside the icon.
  • Count as old after chooses 7, 30 (the default) or 90 days for the notifications and automatic cleans.
  • Clean automatically (off by default) removes old entries from the npm, Yarn, pnpm and Bun caches every day or every week. It never touches node_modules or Docker; those always wait for you to look. You get a notification saying how much it freed.
  • Open at login starts diskdiet with only the icon when you log in.
  • Quit diskdiet stops it, including the background checks.

Settings are kept in settings.json in your user settings folder (~/Library/Application Support/diskdiet on macOS, %AppData%\diskdiet on Windows, ~/.config/diskdiet on Linux).

On Linux, the icon needs a desktop with a system tray (KDE, Cinnamon, Xfce; GNOME with the AppIndicator extension).