Yes. DiskX is free and open source, with no subscription, no upsells and no telemetry. You can download a ready-made DMG or build it from source.

DiskX — macOS disk space analyzer & disk explorer (free, open source)

Q: What is taking up space on my Mac?

On most Macs the largest reclaimable consumers are application caches, developer build artifacts such as Xcode DerivedData and node_modules, old installers and disk images in Downloads, and large video files. DiskX scans your disk and ranks exactly these by how safe they are to delete, showing the reclaimable gigabytes for each.

Q: How is DiskX different from DaisyDisk?

DaisyDisk costs about ten dollars, is genuinely fast and renders a sunburst chart that many people find beautiful. DiskX is free and open source, uses an area-accurate treemap instead of a sunburst, can be operated entirely from the keyboard, and sorts by what is safe to delete first while explaining its reasoning on every row.

Q: Is it safe to delete what DiskX suggests?

DiskX never deletes anything on its own. Its ranking is a deterministic, inspectable score, not machine learning, and every row explains why it is ranked where it is. Deletions always move to the Trash rather than being permanent, the whole batch can be undone with Command-Z, and protected system files cannot be selected for deletion at all.

Q: Does DiskX run on Apple Silicon?

Yes. DiskX is a native universal build for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs and requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later.

The idea

Size tells you what's big. It never tells you what to do.

DiskX's default order is a deterministic, fully inspectable score — never a black box, never AI. The number on every row is always honest gigabytes-reclaimable, and a plain-language line tells you exactly why it's ranked where it is.

Every other analyzer

Sorted by size

The biggest things on your disk are the ones you can't touch — the system, your photo library, apps you use daily. You scroll past all of it, drilling folder by folder, hunting for the stuff that's actually safe to remove.

DiskX

Sorted by reclaim

Regenerable caches, build artifacts, stale installers and old forgotten files rise to the top — weighted by how safe they are to delete and how long since you touched them. The reclaimable gigabytes are right there.

reclaimScore =
reclaimableBytes × safetyTier × staleness

Features

Built the way power users and novices always imagined it.

Fast where it delights, honest where it counts, and safe where it matters.

Reclaim Sort

The innovative default. Rows ordered by what's safe to delete first, each with a WHY line — “Xcode cache — regenerates on next build · untouched 14 months · frees 21 GB.”

Truth Bar

Honest capacity accounting that reconciles with Finder — scanned files, the “System Data” mystery explained, purgeable, and free. No more numbers that don't add up.

Ghost-row hoisting

Deep junk like …/Xcode/DerivedData · 6 levels deep is lifted straight to the top level and acted on in place. No repetitive drilling.

100% keyboard

Navigate, mark across folders, preview, sort and delete without touching the mouse. X to mark, Space to Quick Look, 1–5 to re-sort, ? for the map.

Fear-free deletion

Select, hit Delete, confirm with a keystroke. Everything goes to the Trash — never a permanent delete — and ⌘Z restores the whole batch. Protected system files can't even be selected.

WizTree-class speed

A parallel getattrlistbulk engine with hard-link de-duplication streams results live — never a blank wait, and never a hung scan on cloud placeholders.

Safety

Delete 1 file or 100 — and never the wrong one.

The signature moment. Select any mix of items, press Delete, and a keyboard-first sheet confirms the honest math before anything moves.

Risk-proportional confirm

If everything regenerates, one Return is enough. The moment anything is yours, Return goes inert and an explicit Y is required — safe deletes stay one keystroke, scary ones take one deliberate keystroke more.

Trash-first, always undoable

Every deletion moves to the Trash and reports exactly what it freed. ⌘Z restores the entire batch from the recorded Trash locations. Pre-flight re-checks each file so the sheet never lies about what it's about to remove.

X mark across folders ⌫ delete selection Return / Y confirm Esc / N cancel ⌘Z undo the batch G goal mode

Comparison

How DiskX compares to other Mac disk space analyzers.

If you're weighing DaisyDisk, CleanMyMac, Disk Inventory X, GrandPerspective or OmniDiskSweeper — here's an honest summary, including where the others are genuinely better.

Tool	Platform	Price	Approach	How DiskX differs
DiskX	macOS 14+	Free, open source	Treemap + keyboard list, reclaim-first sorting	Sorts by what's safe to delete rather than raw size; 100 % keyboard; Trash-only with undo
DaisyDisk	macOS	~$10 one-time	Sunburst chart, drag-to-collector deletion	DaisyDisk's sunburst is gorgeous and genuinely fast; DiskX trades it for an area-accurate treemap, keyboard-only operation and explicit “safe to delete” reasoning
CleanMyMac	macOS	Subscription	Automated one-click cleanup suites	CleanMyMac automates far more (uninstaller, malware scan, maintenance); DiskX only analyzes and deletes what you pick — no subscription, no telemetry, no background agents
Disk Inventory X	macOS	Free	The classic treemap that defined this category	Effectively unmaintained and slow on modern multi-terabyte disks; DiskX is a native, parallel, Apple Silicon rewrite of the same idea
GrandPerspective	macOS	Free (GPL)	Long-lived, well-maintained treemap	A great free treemap; DiskX adds labeled rows, reclaim scoring, keyboard navigation and safer deletion
OmniDiskSweeper	macOS	Free	Finder-style size-sorted column browser	Very fast and very simple, but it deletes permanently and shows no visualization; DiskX always routes through the Trash and is undoable
WizTree · TreeSize · WinDirStat · SpaceSniffer	Windows	Free / paid	The Windows gold standard for fast scans	None of them exist on macOS — DiskX is the answer to “I wish there were a WizTree for Mac”
ncdu · dust · gdu	Terminal	Free	Blazing keyboard-driven TUIs	DiskX keeps ncdu's keyboard efficiency and its delete-with-confirm flow, in a native GUI with a treemap
macOS Storage Settings	Built in	Free	High-level category bars	The built-in panel famously can't explain “System Data”; the DiskX Truth Bar reconciles scanned files, system, purgeable and free space so the numbers add up

People find DiskX searching for: mac disk space analyzer · disk usage analyzer macOS · disk explorer for Mac · treemap disk visualizer · find large files on Mac · free up storage on a MacBook · what is System Data on Mac · delete Xcode DerivedData · clean node_modules · Disk Inventory X alternative · DaisyDisk alternative · WizTree for Mac · ncdu GUI · open source Mac disk cleaner.

How it was built

Designed and shipped by an AI orchestration pipeline.

DiskX was built end-to-end by a multi-agent framework — three deterministic workflows fanning out 48 specialized agents across roughly 3.3 million tokens, coordinated by a main loop that owned the architecture, integration and verification.

Workflow 1

Research & design

Parallel agents swept real reviews and forums for the pain points of every existing analyzer — 22 tool findings, 59 explicit user wishes — while three designers produced competing concepts and a judge synthesized the winning spec: Reclaim Sort, the Truth Bar, ghost-row hoisting.

9 agents

Workflow 2

Parallel implementation

The engine and a pinned model contract came first; then six agents implemented the SwiftUI modules concurrently — each owning disjoint files and verifying its own compile — while the main loop handled integration.

6 agents, in parallel

Workflow 3

Adversarial review

Five finders attacked orthogonal dimensions — deletion safety, scanner ABI, concurrency, keyboard, performance — and every finding was handed to an independent skeptic told to refute it. 28 survived, 0 refuted, all fixed before shipping.

33 agents

FAQ

Questions people actually ask.

Short, direct answers — for readers and for the answer engines that quote them.

What is taking up space on my Mac?

On most Macs the biggest reclaimable consumers are application caches, developer build artifacts such as Xcode DerivedData and node_modules, old installers and disk images in Downloads, and large video files. DiskX scans your disk and ranks exactly these by how safe they are to delete, showing the reclaimable gigabytes for each.

Is DiskX free?

Yes. DiskX is free and open source — no subscription, no upsells, no telemetry. Download a ready-made DMG or build it from source in about ten seconds.

Is there a WizTree or WinDirStat for Mac?

WizTree, WinDirStat, TreeSize and SpaceSniffer are Windows-only. DiskX is the macOS equivalent: a parallel getattrlistbulk engine that reads about 29,000 files per second — roughly 2.4× faster than du — presented as a treemap plus a keyboard-driven list.

What is “System Data” on macOS and why is it so large?

System Data is the catch-all bucket macOS Storage Settings uses for everything it doesn't classify: caches, logs, snapshots and purgeable space. macOS never breaks it down. The DiskX Truth Bar reconciles scanned files, system areas, purgeable and free space so the numbers agree with Finder — and explains what each segment actually contains.

How is DiskX different from DaisyDisk?

DaisyDisk costs about $10, is genuinely fast, and its sunburst chart is lovely. DiskX is free and open source, uses an area-accurate treemap instead of a sunburst, runs entirely from the keyboard, and sorts by what's safe to delete first while explaining its reasoning on every row.

Is it safe to delete what DiskX suggests?

DiskX never deletes anything on its own. The ranking is a deterministic, inspectable score — not machine learning — and every row explains why it ranks where it does. Deletions always go to the Trash rather than being permanent, the entire batch is undoable with ⌘Z, and protected system files can't be selected for deletion at all.

Does DiskX send my data anywhere?

No. All scanning and analysis happens on your Mac. DiskX makes no network calls, has no telemetry, runs no background agents, and contains no AI models.

Does DiskX run on Apple Silicon?

Yes — a native universal build for Apple Silicon and Intel, requiring macOS 14 Sonoma or later.

Get your disk space back.

Free and open source. Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later — universal for Apple Silicon and Intel.

Download DiskX 1.0.3 (.dmg) View source on GitHub

Opening it the first time

1.0.3 is the notarized build of the 1.0.2 security release — which fixes a reproducible crash that let any scanned folder abort the app, and hardens the deletion path. Drag it to Applications and open it: no right-click → Open, no xattr, no Privacy & Security detour. It is Developer ID signed, notarized by Apple and stapled — both the DMG and the app inside it, so first launch works offline too.

To scan ~/Library and system paths, grant Full Disk Access in System Settings → Privacy & Security. Without it DiskX shows an honest “unreadable folders” chip instead of silently undercounting.

Or build from source

# Requires macOS 14+ and a Swift 6 toolchain
git clone https://github.com/avantigroupai/DiskX.git
cd DiskX
swift build && Scripts/package_app.sh
open DiskX.app
      

The disk visualizer macOS never shipped.