gitstua/mac-disk-cleanup

Mac Disk Cleanup

Two-part workflow: safe cache cleanup, then stale node_modules removal.

Part 1 — Cache cleanup (always safe, no user decision needed)

Run scripts/clean_caches.sh. This clears:

• npm cache (~/.npm)
• pip3 cache (~/Library/Caches/pip)
• uv cache (~/.cache/uv)
• Homebrew old versions + downloads cache

Report MB freed per tool.

Part 2 — LM Studio / Ollama model cleanup (confirmation required)

These models are large files that can't be re-downloaded automatically — always confirm before deleting.

LM Studio

List installed models with sizes:

find ~/.lmstudio/models -name "*.gguf" -o -name "*.safetensors" 2>/dev/null \
  | xargs du -sh 2>/dev/null | sort -rh

Show the list to the user and ask which models to remove. Delete by removing the model's parent folder (e.g. ~/.lmstudio/models/publisher/model-name/) so stale metadata doesn't linger.

Ollama

List installed models:

ollama list 2>/dev/null

For each model the user wants to remove:

ollama rm <model-name>

This is the correct removal method — do not delete ~/.ollama/models/blobs/ directly, as Ollama manages content-addressed storage there and manual deletion can corrupt the store.

Confirmation rule

Always show a summary of what will be deleted and its total size, then ask: "OK to delete these models?" before proceeding. Never delete models without an explicit yes.

Part 3 — node_modules audit and cleanup

Find candidates

Run scripts/find_node_modules.sh (optionally pass a root dir, defaults to $HOME).

Output is tab-separated: size_mb last_modified_date path

Classify by staleness

Use the parent directory's last-modified date to judge staleness:

| Age | Action | |-----|--------| | Last modified > 6 months ago | Safe to remove — offer to clean automatically | | Last modified 1–6 months ago | Ask the user before removing | | Last modified < 1 month ago | Leave alone (skip) | | Path contains /Downloads/ | Always remove — these are stale copies | | Path contains /old/ or /archive/ | Always remove | | Path is the current working directory | Always skip |

Skip managed directories

These are already excluded by the script, but double-check you never delete from:

• ~/.nvm/ — node version manager (removing breaks node)
• ~/.vscode/extensions/ — VS Code manages these
• ~/.copilot/, ~/.cache/opencode/ — tool-managed
• ~/.lmstudio/ outside of models/ — app config, not models
• ~/.ollama/models/blobs/ — use ollama rm instead of direct deletion

Clean and report

For the stale candidates, show the user the list with sizes before deleting. Then:

rm -rf "/path/to/node_modules"

Report total MB freed. Remind the user that npm install restores any removed node_modules.

Part 3 — Disk summary

After cleanup, run:

df -h / | awk 'NR==2 {print "Free: "$4" / "$2" ("$5" used)"}'

Report the before/after free space.

What NOT to touch

• Browser caches (Arc, Chrome, WhatsApp) — these rebuild automatically but clearing them requires quitting the app first; only do this if the user explicitly asks
• ~/Library/Application Support/ — app data, not cache
• Python virtual environments (.venv/, venv/) — don't delete these without asking