CleanMyMac 5.7.0 — Mac version

People who run repair cafés and bike libraries tend to be tidy-up types. The same urge that makes you true a wheel gets you poking around a Mac looking for digital clutter. CleanMyMac is a utility for that — a one-stop shop for clearing caches, finding space-hogging files, and running a malware scan without juggling three different tools.

Instant cache clear and forgotten-file hunter

• Instant system cleanup — clears caches, logs, and temporary files in one pass
• Hunting down big forgotten files you don't need anymore
• A malware protection module that scans for threats
• Permanently deleting files so they can't be recovered
• New in version 5.7.0: tools for cleaning and managing Gmail, including email cleanup

macOS 11 minimum and full disk access needed

• Needs macOS 11 or later — older Macs are out of luck
• If you want a dedicated app-removal tool, MacPaw makes App Cleaner & Uninstaller separately
• You'll need to grant full disk access on modern macOS versions before it can do its job

Drag a file onto the dock icon for a quick size scan

The big buttons get all the attention, but a few tucked-away bits make the daily tidy-up quicker.

• Drop a file on the dock icon. Drag any file or folder onto CleanMyMac's icon and it runs a quick size scan on just that item. No need to open the app and navigate anywhere.
• Right-click leftovers. After an app uninstall, the leftover scanner highlights orphaned preference panes and launch agents. Click any item and hit the spacebar to preview its path before you delete it.
• Space Lens keyboard shortcut. Once you have the large-file finder open, press Cmd-2 to switch straight to the sunburst view. Cmd-1 takes you back to the list.
• Mail attachments filter. The new Gmail cleanup in 5.7.0 lets you sort attachments by size and age in one column. Click the paperclip icon next to any message to preview the file before archiving it.
• Menu bar monitor. Turn on the menu bar helper from preferences. A tiny ring shows how much space you have free, and a click opens a dropdown with a quick-scan button. No dock clutter.

Rescuing a MacBook Air with 4 GB free

I had a neighbour turn up at the repair café with a MacBook Air wheezing on 4 GB of free space. We sat down and ran through it together. Here's how it went.

1. Smart Scan first. Opened CleanMyMac and hit the big blue button. Two minutes later it had found 14 GB of system junk, mail attachment clutter, and a handful of old iOS backups the machine had been hoarding since 2022.
2. Review before you pull the trigger. We clicked through each category. The mail attachments list surprised her — 3 GB of forwarded PDFs from old work projects. She unchecked a handful she wanted to keep and left the rest ticked.
3. Run the cleanup. One click and the lot was gone. The Air felt snappier straight away, mostly because the freed space gave the SSD some breathing room.
4. Malware scan. Switched to the Protection tab and ran a full scan. It found some adware piggybacking on a free video converter she'd installed six months back. Quarantined it in seconds.
5. Space Lens for the leftovers. We used the large-file finder to spot a 6 GB video project folder she'd forgotten about. She moved it to an external drive and reclaimed the space.

Whole thing took under ten minutes. She walked out with a clean machine and a note of which tools to run once a month.

One user, one real situation

A musician friend runs a Mac Studio packed with sample libraries. Kontakt instruments, Omnisphere patches, Spitfire Audio collections — the kind of stuff that eats half a terabyte before breakfast. His problem wasn't junk files. It was knowing where the space had gone.

He used the File Scope view to map his external drive visually. The sunburst diagram made it obvious: a folder called "Old Projects 2021" was squatting on 80 GB. Inside were Logic Pro sessions with take after take of guitar parts he'd already bounced down. He'd assumed he needed them. He didn't. He moved the folder to cold storage and freed up a chunk of space without deleting a single sample library. The malware scanner gave him peace of mind too — plug-ins from smaller developers sometimes bundle things they shouldn't, and he wanted a second set of eyes on his system.

From cluttered inbox to manageable mailbox

Email cleanup is new in 5.7.0, and it's worth a proper walkthrough. Here's a workflow for someone drowning in Gmail attachments.

• You'll need: a Gmail account connected to Mail or signed in via the browser, and the latest version of CleanMyMac with the email module showing.

1. Open CleanMyMac and go to the Mail section under the Cleanup tab. Grant access when prompted — the app needs permission to scan your mailbox.
2. Wait for the scan to finish. The list sorts itself into attachments by type: PDFs, images, ZIP files, old video clippings.
3. Sort by size, descending. You'll spot the big offenders immediately — that 24 MB PDF catalogue from a supplier three years ago, the 40 MB video a friend sent on WhatsApp that landed in your inbox and never got deleted.
4. Click any item to preview it in a pop-up panel. No guessing. You see the file before you decide.
5. Tick the ones you want gone. The app shows you the total space you'll reclaim at the bottom of the window.
6. Hit clean. The attachments are removed from your mailbox but the email text stays put, so you don't lose the sender's message — just the space-hogging file hanging off it.

One person's tidy-up freed 7 GB of Gmail space without losing a single conversation thread. If you've been putting off a mailbox spring clean because it looked like a weekend job, this turns it into a lunch break.

• Added tools for cleaning and managing mail in Gmail
• New email cleanup functionality to reclaim space from old attachments and messages

• macOS 11 or later
• Apple Silicon or 64-bit Intel Mac