Harbofly

🇧🇷 Português · 🇺🇸 English

The disk cleaner built for developers. Recover 20-100 GB from node_modules, Docker, Gradle, Xcode and build caches, safely. → harbofly.app

A macOS menu-bar app that finds on its own what's eating your disk and lets you clean it in one click, with zero path configuration.

It was born from a real pain: an iOS/Android dev Mac piles up tens of GB of build artifacts and caches (build/, .build/, node_modules/, DerivedData, SPM/Homebrew/Yarn/pip caches…) that nobody remembers to clean. Harbofly scans those places automatically, shows how much you can recover, and groups everything by risk level, and, by default, sends it all to the Trash (so you can restore it).

Free · Open source · Apple-notarized · Privacy-first (opt-in, anonymous analytics).

_{▶ Full demo at harbofly.app}

_{It knows which projects you abandoned — and warns you if they still hold unpushed work.}

Featured

Listed on Awesome Mac, the curated directory of standout macOS apps, and shared by its maintainer @jaywcjlove. It's described there as "a menu bar app that auto-discovers and frees the disk space dev build artifacts and caches hog."

Install

brew install --cask carloshpdoc/tap/harbofly

Or download the notarized .dmg at harbofly.app.

CLI

The app binary doubles as a CLI — the Homebrew install exposes it as harbofly:

harbofly scan                # list caches/artifacts with size and risk tier
harbofly scan --json         # machine-readable output
harbofly clean --dry-run     # preview what a safe clean would move to the Trash
harbofly clean               # move every 🟢 safe item to the Trash
harbofly clean --stale-only  # only artifacts from projects idle for 90+ days

The CLI only ever touches the 🟢 safe tier and always goes through the Trash. Installed from the DMG? Run /Applications/Harbofly.app/Contents/MacOS/Harbofly scan.

Features

• Auto-discovery: scans ~/Development for build, .build, node_modules, Pods, plus 25+ known cache locations — package managers (npm, pnpm, Bun, Gradle, Maven, Cargo, Go, Flutter, pip, uv, CocoaPods, Homebrew…), editors (VS Code, Cursor, JetBrains) and AI tools (Ollama, Hugging Face, LM Studio model weights). Zero path config.
• Per-project DerivedData: each Xcode project's build folder shows up on its own, resolved to the workspace that owns it.
• Stale project detection: projects with no activity for 90+ days get a badge — and a red warning if they hold uncommitted or unpushed work (read from your local git, fully offline).
• Auto-clean (opt-in, free): let Harbofly do the chore itself — at the end of the day, at the start of the day, when Xcode quits, weekly, or when disk runs low. You pick the scope (tool caches → idle projects → everything 🟢) and the minimum. Only 🟢 safe items, always through the Trash, with a notification and history. After a few manual cleanups it offers to take over in one tap. The automation other cleaners lock behind a paid Pro plan — here it's free.
• Old simulators in one click: simctl delete unavailable from the app, with a two-step confirm.
• macOS purgeable space, explained: shows how much space Time Machine snapshots and system caches hold — the classic "I deleted 20 GB and Finder shows nothing".
• 6 languages: Português, English, Español, Français, Deutsch, 中文 — switching instantly.
• In-app feedback: a bug or idea goes straight to the maintainer, no account needed.
• Disk bar at the top, colored by pressure: green → orange (<20%) → red (<10%).
• "Recoverable: X GB": the total you can free right now.
• Risk tiers:
  • 🟢 Safe: regenerates itself on the next build.
  • 🟡 Caution: rebuilds, but it costs (recompiling from scratch, re-downloading device symbols).
  • 🔵 Informative: large folders it shows just so you know where the space is, but never deletes (CoreSimulator, Application Support, Downloads).
• Trash-first by default: restorable. Permanent delete exists, but it's opt-in and you confirm first.
• Each item shows its name, full path, and what it is.
• "Select safe" checks the whole safe tier at once.
• Low-space notification: warns you when free space drops below the threshold you pick (5/10/15/20%).
• Automatic rescan every 30 min + a manual button.
• Auto-update via Sparkle: notifies you when a new version ships (can be turned off).

Safety

Since it's a tool that deletes files, it's built to be trustworthy:

• Default = Trash (restorable); nothing risky is pre-selected; confirmation before any deletion.
• Open source end to end: you can audit exactly what leaves your machine. Analytics is opt-in and off by default (via TelemetryDeck); when on, it sends only anonymous, aggregate usage stats (events, GB recovered, cache categories) — never your email, IP, name, paths, or project names. Toggle it anytime in preferences.
• Signed with a Developer ID + notarized by Apple; build provenance (SLSA) on every release, verifiable with gh attestation verify Harbofly.dmg --repo carloshpdoc/Harbofly.

What it scans

~/Development (auto-discovery, up to depth 3): build, .build, node_modules, Pods, DerivedData, all classified 🟢 Safe.

~/Library (known targets):

Path	Tier	What it is
Developer/Xcode/DerivedData	🟢	Xcode build intermediates
Developer/XcodeBuildMCP/workspaces	🟢	XcodeBuildMCP workspaces
Caches/org.swift.swiftpm	🟢	Swift Package Manager cache
Caches/Homebrew	🟢	Homebrew downloads
Caches/Yarn	🟢	Yarn cache
Caches/pip	🟢	pip cache
Developer/Xcode/iOS DeviceSupport	🟡	Device symbols (recreated when you plug in an iPhone)
Caches/ms-playwright	🟡	Browsers downloaded by Playwright
Caches/Google	🟡	Google/Chrome cache

Informative (read-only, never deleted): Library/Developer/CoreSimulator, Library/Application Support, Downloads.

Items under 10 MB are ignored to reduce noise. The targets live in scanDevelopment(), scanLibrary() and scanInfo() in Sources/Harbofly/App.swift, easy to tweak.

Requirements

• macOS 14+ (Sonoma)
• Apple Silicon
• Swift 6 (Xcode toolchain)

Build & Run

# Builds signed Harbofly.app and prints where it landed
./make-app.sh

# Open it (the icon shows up in the menu bar)
open Harbofly.app

To distribute outside the Mac App Store (sign with Developer ID, notarize, staple and build the styled .dmg):

# needs SIGN_ID, ASC_KEY_ID and ASC_ISSUER_ID in the env + the .p8 in ~/.appstoreconnect/private_keys/
./make-dmg.sh   # produces a ready-to-distribute Harbofly.dmg

Official releases go out via GitHub Actions when you push a vX.Y.Z tag: build + notarization + build provenance + .dmg + Sparkle appcast + automatic cask bump in the tap.

During development:

xcrun swift build            # debug
xcrun swift run              # run directly (no .app; Sparkle stays inert)
xcrun swift build -c release # release

Versioning

• User-facing SemVer in the VERSION file (single source of truth).
• Monotonic build number = commit count (git rev-list --count HEAD).

Structure

Harbofly/
├── Package.swift                 # SwiftPM (macOS 14+) + Sparkle dependency
├── Sources/Harbofly/App.swift    # the whole app: scanner + UI (display name in AppInfo.name)
├── Assets/                       # icon art (HarboflyIcon.png) + Harbofly.icns
├── VERSION                       # user-facing SemVer
├── appcast.xml                   # Sparkle update feed (generated on release)
├── make-app.sh                   # builds Harbofly.app (embeds + signs Sparkle)
├── make-dmg.sh                   # signs (Developer ID) + notarizes + builds the .dmg
├── make-icon.sh                  # generates the .icns from the art
├── .github/workflows/release.yml # release CI (tag v* → build/notarize/appcast/cask)
├── SETUP-SPARKLE.md              # how to configure the auto-update keys
└── README.md

Auto-update (Sparkle)

The app checks a signed (EdDSA) appcast and offers the update. It stays inert until the keys are configured, see SETUP-SPARKLE.md. Homebrew users update with brew upgrade.