TrailSiftTrailSift for Mac
Clear the traces other cleaners miss
Your Mac quietly keeps a record of where you've been: the sites you visited, the networks you joined, the people you wrote to. TrailSift finds every trace in the corners ordinary cleaners never look, and clears the ones you choose, leaving your Mac clean and tidy.
News by email
Hear when TrailSift gets something new
A few emails a year about new versions and features. We don't track whether you open them, and every one has a link to unsubscribe.
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We'll email you a link to confirm, and keep nothing until you do. Bought TrailSift Pro? You chose at checkout, and can change it from any of our emails. How we handle your address: privacy policy.
A look inside
Everything it finds, before anything changes.
The audit reads more than 30 places and shows what's in each: how many, how big and from when. Then you choose what to clear.
Screenshots show demo data, in your system's light or dark appearance. More in the press kit.
What it finds
The places other cleaners leave alone.
Cache cleaners free space. TrailSift follows the trail: the logs, lists and leftovers that record where you've been, in more than thirty places across macOS and your apps, and the clutter old devices and deleted apps leave behind.
The download log
macOS records every file you download, with the address it came from. Clearing your browser history leaves it untouched.
Old iPhone and iPad backups
Full copies of devices you no longer own, with years of messages and photos. Often the largest forgotten files on a Mac.
History in every browser
Chrome, Brave, Edge, Arc, Firefox, Safari and the smaller ones, with their downloads lists, caches and site icons.
Cookies and site data
Hundreds of sites remembered in every browser, with storage that outlives a cleared history.
Remembered Wi-Fi networks
Every network your Mac has joined, a record of where it has been. Sort by last used and forget the old ones.
Learned typing
Words taught to the spell checker and what the keyboard has learned from you, ready to start afresh.
What deleted apps leave
Support folders, caches and settings of apps you removed long ago, named so you know what they were.
Shell history and print jobs
Commands typed in Terminal, clipboard managers' history, and the record of every finished print job.
Where each download came from
Every downloaded file keeps the address it came from, shown in Get Info, and browsers keep a list of secure sites apart from history.
Addresses Mail remembers
Everyone you've emailed or messaged, kept to suggest again, even people you've removed from Contacts. Forget them one by one.
Location in your photos
Photos say where they were taken, often to a few metres. See which do, and share copies without it.
Code editors and notifications
VS Code's terminal history and recent projects, and the past notifications macOS keeps with their text.
Every place, why it matters and how to clear it yourself is on What TrailSift checks. Weighing up cleaners? See how TrailSift compares with CleanMyMac, CCleaner, OnyX and AppCleaner.
How it works
See everything first. Change nothing you didn't choose.
Audit
A read-only look at every place, with the count, size and dates of what's there. Databases are read from a private copy, and nothing on your Mac is changed.
Choose
Tick what to clear, or let the Clean Up Wizard walk you through it. The review shows exactly what goes: every file, every entry, and the space it frees.
Clear
Files go to the Trash and databases are backed up for a week first. Free space is shown before and after, and the audit runs again so you can see what's gone.
Built on trust
A privacy tool that respects your privacy.
Nothing leaves your Mac
No account, no analytics, no tracking. The only thing TrailSift asks the internet is whether a newer version is out.
Nothing changes until you say
The audit only reads. Every clean-up is previewed in full and confirmed by you, and an app's data is only touched while that app is quit.
Its method is open
Every place it looks is documented with sources, and the audit script is open source under the MIT licence.
Free and Pro
Start with the full audit. Clear with Pro.
TrailSift
Free
- The full audit of every place macOS lets an app read
- The size, count and dates of every trace
- How to clear each one yourself
- What changed since your last audit
- Leftovers of deleted apps, by name
- The Privacy Settings check
- Photo Locations and the Hand Over This Mac checklist
TrailSift Pro
£10 or $13 or €11, once
Launch price until 19 January, usually £15, $19 or €17. Codes from Product Hunt, Hacker News and r/macapps take up to 66% off.
- Clear what you choose, with the space freed before and after
- The Clean Up Wizard, in three steps
- Forget a site, or the last hour, everywhere at once
- Old device backups, cookies, Wi-Fi networks and learned typing
- Remove an app with everything it keeps
- Forget remembered addresses, download addresses and old startup items
- Copies of photos without their location
- Scheduled clean-ups, as often as you like
- The protected places in full, Word Search and PDF reports
One licence for all of your own Macs. Refunds within 14 days, no questions asked.
Questions
Good to know.
Is it safe?
Yes. The audit only reads, and nothing changes until you review a clean-up and confirm it. Files go to the Trash, and databases are backed up for a week before any entry is removed.
Why does it ask for Full Disk Access?
macOS protects places such as Safari, Messages and iPhone backups until you allow an app to read them. TrailSift works without it and tells you what it can't see; with it, the audit is complete.
Does it replace my usual cleaner?
It complements it. Cache cleaners free space in the obvious places. TrailSift clears the records and leftovers they don't look for.
How do I get help?
Ask in the Itch.studio Discord or email support@trailsift.com. More answers are in the FAQ.
See what your Mac remembers.
The audit is free and takes about a minute. Nothing changes unless you choose.