DaisyDisk 4+

I’ve been using DaisyDisk for a couple of years now and have always been impressed with the slick interface, which makes me just want to open it to take a look. DaisyDIsk also has the ability to drill down into the detail, and then explain those details through very helpful web support. However, now there’s an additional reason to like DaisyDisk. I recently updated to High Sierra and even more recently developed issues with Purgeable Space occupying so much of my main drive that I became worried that I was going to have to either upgrade to a larger disk, or make some major changes to my workflow to accommodate. But, after doing a bit of digging around on the internet I found out that DaisyDIsk can remove Purgeable Space and make it available as free space once more. Just right click on the Purgeable Space displayed by DaisyDisk after doing an Administrator Scan. On my MacBook Pro with a 500GB drive I had 113 GB available prior to sorting out Purgeable Space and around 262GB after. A major improvement.

My MacBook was warning me that I was running out of space. I used the built in System Information storage management to clear out quite a lot and thought that was as much as I could do. I then saw DaisyDisk advertised on the app store so gave it a go. I wondered whether it would be a stupid move - adding more software to an already full Mac but it wasn't. I managed to delete an additional 40Gb of stuff (the DaisyDisk app is only 6Mb). I really like the way that it presents it in a visual style - a sort of pie chart of files - so you can see what takes up the most space. I had huge applications installed that I'd used once and then forgotten about and this highlighted them where I hadn't spotted them in Mac storage management. It's very quick and easy to use. I'd definitely recommend it.

I've been using Daisy Disk for years and I'm so glad I spent a little bit of money for such a helpful tool.

Firstly, scanning my 1TB nearly full SSD only takes a minute, way faster than I expected. Even my old iMac with a hard drive was fast to scan, this is a very well optimised app.

Next, the daisy chart interface is perfection. It combines clear visual indicators with all the information you need. You can see all the sizes, path, quickly drill down and back. Right click to show in Finder if you want to get more info. Perfect.

It's actually fun to use, what utility is ever fun‽ It's quick, fluid, colorful. You don't have to jump through hoops, the tool is there to help you.

Finally, the UX has clearly been thought about a lot. There's a running total of space to be freed up, and then when you click delete there's a countdown. It might sound silly but how many times have you deleted an email or file and then thought WAIT! The countdown is that last little consideration for real humans that tops off this wonderful app.

If you have lots of stuff, and you want to have less stuff, get Daisy Disk.