devpurge

Purge hidden dev caches on macOS. Reclaim GBs from Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, node_modules, stale git worktrees, uv, Playwright, and 70+ more.

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Why devpurge?

Your Mac's "System Data" keeps growing. GUI cleaners are catching up on AI-era tools, but none of them understand a developer's disk: stale git worktrees from agentic coding sessions, monorepo node_modules, Codex/Claude runtime caches — and none of them can run from cron.

devpurge knows exactly where AI-era dev tools store their bloat, and safely removes it. It cleans dev caches only — it never touches your personal files.

$ devpurge -n

  devpurge v0.4.0
  Purge hidden dev caches on macOS

  #     Tier      Size      Description
  ──    ────────  ────────  ───────────────────────────────────
  A11   AI-Era    3.3G      Codex CLI runtime cache
  W12   Worktree  1.9G      worktree: my-app-feature-x (merged, clean, idle 7d+)
  D28   DevTool   1.6G      pnpm content-addressable store
  A04   AI-Era    1.6G      uv Python cache
  X01   Project   1.3G      .next cache (web)
  N07   Project   1.1G      node_modules (web)
  E01   DevTool   127M      App cache: Claude/Code Cache

  Total reclaimable: 43.8G

  Review — large data devpurge will NOT delete (your call)
  V01   59.8G     Downloads folder (check old files yourself)
  R05   1.9G      worktree: my-app-wip (dirty (uncommitted changes))

Real Results

• v0.3.0: 45GB recovered on one machine — 221GB used down to 176GB
• v0.4.0: 43.8GB found reclaimable on an already-maintained machine (22.4GB of it was stale git worktrees no other tool detects)

Install

Homebrew (recommended)

brew tap sogadaiki/devpurge
brew install devpurge

curl

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sogadaiki/devpurge/main/install.sh | bash

Manual

git clone https://github.com/sogadaiki/devpurge.git ~/.devpurge
ln -sf ~/.devpurge/bin/devpurge /usr/local/bin/devpurge

Usage

# Scan only (dry run) — see what's there without deleting
devpurge -n

# Interactive cleanup — scan, review, confirm, delete
devpurge

# Recoverable cleanup — move to ~/.Trash instead of deleting
devpurge --trash

# Auto-confirm + generate share text
devpurge -y -s

# Where did my disk go? (read-only overview of $HOME)
devpurge --discover

# Machine-readable output for scripts
devpurge --json | jq '.total_reclaimable_bytes'

# AI-era caches only
devpurge --ai-only

# Include everything (Notion, Discord, Slack, AI models, etc.)
devpurge -a

# System-level caches (sleepimage, diagnostics, Adobe system caches)
sudo devpurge -n

# Exclude specific paths (also skips everything under them)
devpurge --exclude ~/Projects/my-app/node_modules

Options

Flag	Description
-n, --dry-run	Scan only, don't delete anything
-a, --all	Include caution-level caches
-y, --yes	Skip confirmation prompt
-s, --share	Generate shareable summary after cleanup
--trash	Move to ~/.Trash instead of deleting (recoverable)
--json	Print scan results as JSON and exit
--discover	Show largest items under $HOME (read-only) and exit
--exclude PATH	Exclude path and everything under it (repeatable)
--ai-only	AI-era caches only
--no-worktrees	Skip git worktree detection
--no-color	Disable colored output
-v, --version	Show version
-h, --help	Show help

Cache Tiers

Protected patterns (v0.5.0 — the "never touch" guarantee)

Paths containing 証拠 / 裁判 / 訴訟 / 準備書面 / 判決 / 原本 / 契約書 etc. are structurally protected: devpurge refuses to delete or quarantine them under any tier, any flag, any mode. Add your own with protect=SUBSTRING in ~/.devpurgerc. Built for people who keep litigation evidence next to disposable dev artifacts — the tool must know the difference.

Quarantine (v0.5.0 — recoverable AI-triage staging)

devpurge quarantine ~/old-experiment "superseded by v2"   # move, don't delete
devpurge quarantine --list                                # see what's held
devpurge quarantine --restore Q003                        # full undo

Nothing judged by heuristics or AI goes straight to deletion. Quarantined items are held for 30 days (quarantine_days=N) with a manifest, restorable to their exact original path, and only expire on a later cleanup run. Refuses protected patterns.

Branch (v0.5.0)

Local branches fully merged into the default branch, deleted with git branch -d only (git refuses anything unmerged). Every deleted branch's SHA is logged to ~/Library/Application Support/devpurge/logs/ first — restore any branch with git branch <name> <sha>.

Worktree (v0.4.0, squash-aware since v0.5.0)

Agentic coding (Codex, Claude Code, etc.) leaves behind git worktrees — full checkouts with their own node_modules. devpurge finds every worktree of every repo in your project directories and classifies it:

• merged + clean + idle 7d+ → removable, via git worktree remove (never rm -rf)
• squash-merged + clean + idle → also removable — git cherry patch-equivalence catches branches that agentic tools (Codex etc.) squash-merged, which look "unmerged" to naive ancestor checks
• stale records → git worktree prune
• unmerged / dirty / locked / recently active / contains .env* → reported only, never touched

Unattended runs (-y, e.g. cron) skip worktree removal entirely unless you opt in with worktree_auto=1 — git-clean checks can't see ignored files, so a human should be in the loop by default. Idle threshold configurable via worktree_age_days=N in ~/.devpurgerc.

Review (v0.4.0 new — reported, NEVER deleted)

Large user data that a cleanup tool has no business deleting, but that you should know about: Downloads, Movies, screen recordings on the Desktop, AI session histories (~/.codex/sessions, ~/.claude/projects), browser-automation profiles, Time Machine local snapshots. devpurge shows them with sizes and lets you decide.

v0.5.0 adds two detectors here:

• Stray duplicates: same-name same-size files ≥50MB across your user dirs — Unicode-normalization-aware, and smart enough to skip the same repo file seen through multiple git worktrees
• Stale files: files ≥100MB not opened in 90+ days (stale_days=N), via Spotlight's kMDItemLastUsedDate — a real "did I ever look at this again" signal, not just mtime

AI-Era

Claude Desktop VM bundles, Claude Code CLI/plugin/debug caches, Codex CLI runtime cache, Gemini CLI temp sessions, Cursor, Codeium, Kiro, uv, Playwright, Puppeteer, Bun.

Standard Dev Tools

npm (+npx), pnpm store, Yarn, Homebrew, Chrome (browser cache + Service Workers + IndexedDB + component cache), VS Code (extensions + bytecode cache), pip, Poetry, Cargo, Gradle, Maven, Xcode (DerivedData, archives, simulator caches), Go, Deno, Composer, TypeScript ATA, Electron, electron-builder, SwiftPM, JetBrains, Android build cache, Adobe media cache, system logs, and more.

Plus three auto-detectors that catch what static lists miss:

• Misc caches: anything ≥10MB in ~/Library/Caches not already targeted
• Electron app caches: Cache / Code Cache / GPUCache / DawnCache inside any app's Application Support (catches new AI IDEs the day you install them)
• Container caches: sandboxed app caches in ~/Library/Containers/*/Data/Library/Caches

Project

node_modules and .next in your project folders (scans 5 levels deep — monorepo apps/*, workers/* included). Recoverable with npm install / npm run build.

Caution (use --all)

Notion, Discord, Slack, Adobe Fonts/CoreSync, Filmora, Steam, Zoom, Chatwork, Telegram — plus things that are safe but expensive to re-download: Whisper / Hugging Face / Ollama / LM Studio models, Chrome on-device AI models, Cypress binaries, Gradle wrapper dists, Xcode device symbols.

System (sudo devpurge)

sleepimage (with automatic hibernatemode 0), system diagnostics logs, software update cache, Adobe system-level caches, iLife-era leftovers.

vs CleanMyMac / DevCleaner / npkill / kondo

Feature	devpurge	CleanMyMac	DevCleaner	npkill/kondo
Stale git worktree detection	Yes	No	No	No
AI-era caches (Claude/Codex/Cursor/uv/…)	Yes	Partial	Yes	No
Auto-detect new Electron/AI apps	Yes	No	No	No
node_modules / .next auto-scan (monorepo)	Yes	No	No	Yes
Review tier (reports, refuses to delete user data)	Yes	No	No	No
Recoverable deletion	--trash	Trash	—	No
JSON output / cron-safe CLI	Yes	No	No	Partial
Free & open source, zero deps, zero telemetry	Yes	No ($40/yr)	Free (GUI)	Yes

What devpurge deliberately does NOT do: mail attachments, language files, duplicate finders, "smart" scans of your documents. Dev caches only. Personal data is never touched — the Review tier exists precisely so the tool can inform without acting.

AI-Native Usage

devpurge is designed to be driven by an AI agent, not just a human at a terminal. The division of labor:

• devpurge (deterministic layer) decides what is provably safe: whitelisted caches, git-verified merged worktrees, git branch -d-safe branches. It also refuses what no tool should decide: protected patterns, review-tier data.
• Your AI agent (judgment layer) reads devpurge --json, investigates the review-tier gray zone with real evidence — git ls-remote (is the branch backed up on origin?), git ls-files --others -i --exclude-standard (are the gitignored leftovers regenerable or one-of-a-kind?), your dev logs / notes / session history (was this work superseded?), Spotlight's kMDItemLastUsedDate (did a human ever open it again?) — and disposes via devpurge quarantine <path> "<reason>".
• Quarantine (safety layer) makes AI misjudgment cheap: everything is restorable for 30 days, and protected patterns are refused even here.

devpurge --json | your-agent   # candidates in, judgments out
devpurge quarantine ~/old-thing "superseded by v2 per dev log 2026-07-01"
devpurge quarantine --restore Q003   # the undo that makes bold AI judgment safe

The contract in one line: the AI may be bold because the tool makes boldness reversible.

Config File

Create ~/.devpurgerc:

# Keep active project dependencies (path + everything under it)
exclude=~/Desktop/development/my-app/node_modules

# Days a merged worktree must be idle before it's removable (default 7)
worktree_age_days=14

# Allow worktree removal in unattended (-y) runs (default: skip)
worktree_auto=1

CLI --exclude flags are merged with config file entries.

Safety

• Static targets are limited to a hardcoded whitelist
• Dynamic scans (node_modules, misc/Electron/Container caches) are restricted to $HOME and whitelisted path patterns
• Worktrees are removed via git worktree remove — git itself refuses dirty/locked trees; devpurge never passes --force
• Review tier is structurally excluded from deletion (not just by default — the cleanup code refuses it)
• Final guard before every rm -rf: blocks empty paths, /, $HOME itself, traversal, and symlinks
• --trash moves to ~/.Trash for full recoverability
• Permission errors are skipped, not forced
• Interactive confirmation by default (use --yes to skip)
• Dry run mode (--dry-run) for safe scanning

Share Your Results

After cleanup, use --share to generate a ready-to-post summary:

I just purged 43.8GB of hidden dev caches with devpurge

Stale git worktrees: 22.4GB
Codex runtime: 3.3GB
uv Python: 1.6GB
+ 30 more

Your Mac is hoarding AI-era bloat. Check yours:
https://github.com/sogadaiki/devpurge
#devpurge

Requirements

• macOS (any version with Bash 3.2+)
• No dependencies. Pure Bash.

License

MIT