Which fits your needs?
DeepClean: Mac users who want explained cleanup categories and developer-cache coverage.
Disk Inventory X: Users interested in the classic treemap or its community successors.
Features, pricing, and workflow
Scroll across to compare
| Feature | DeepClean | Disk Inventory X |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | Mac users who want explained cleanup categories and developer-cache coverage. | Users interested in the classic treemap or its community successors. |
| Visualization | Category and large-file lists with safety ratings | Treemap; features depend on X, Xs, or Y |
| Platforms and requirements | macOS 13+ | Original X 1.3: macOS 10.13–10.15; Xs/Y requirements differ |
| Pricing and editions | Free scan and first gigabyte of cleanup; unlimited cleanup listed at $39 once per Mac. | Original X is free under the GPL; Xs and Y are independent community projects. |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| Native macOS UI | Yes | Yes |
| Cleanup workflow | Select items for Trash; caution items require deliberate selection and acknowledgement. | Check the selected project’s manual; X, Xs, and Y do not share a guaranteed cleanup contract. |
| Reports and portability | Retain deletion history and important decisions separately. The product overview does not document importing its records into another analyzer. | Check export support in the exact X, Xs, or Y build. Retain its scan records separately; no direct import into NullDisk is documented. |
DeepClean: what stands out
A good fit for Mac users who want explained cleanup categories and developer-cache coverage.
DeepClean: strengths
- Safe/Review/Caution categories and item explanations
- Developer toolchain cleanup and content-matched duplicates
- Trash-first cleanup with deletion history
Considerations
- Unlimited cleanup requires a paid per-Mac license
- Category judgments still depend on your workflow
- Primarily category-based cleanup rather than a disk map
Disk Inventory X: what stands out
A good fit for users interested in the classic treemap or its community successors.
Disk Inventory X: strengths
- Treemap visualization of disk usage
- Xs updates the original codebase for Apple Silicon
- Y is a separate Swift/SwiftUI rewrite
Considerations
- The original X, revival Xs, and rewrite Y are different apps
- Compatibility and features depend on the chosen build
- Check each project’s current release and signing instructions
For a useful comparison on your own drive, match the scan root, access permissions, and size mode. Chart style changes how you explore the results; it does not by itself establish measurement accuracy.
Common questions
When should I choose DeepClean?
A good fit for Mac users who want explained cleanup categories and developer-cache coverage. Free scan and first gigabyte of cleanup; unlimited cleanup listed at $39 once per Mac.
When should I choose Disk Inventory X?
A good fit for users interested in the classic treemap or its community successors. Original X is free under the GPL; Xs and Y are independent community projects.
Will both apps show the same size?
Not necessarily. Match the scan root, permissions, exclusions, and logical/allocated-size mode. Hard links, APFS clones, snapshots, sparse files, and cloud placeholders can change totals. A reported size is not a guaranteed amount recovered after deletion.