The safety model

Every module scans first and shows you a list before anything happens. There is no “clean now” path that skips review — the scan and the removal are separate actions, and the second one always requires your click.

Each row tells you what the item is, where it lives, how large it is, and what happens if it goes. Items the app considers risky are unchecked by default; you have to opt in, not opt out.

The default path for every module is a move to the macOS Trash — the same operation Finder performs. Files keep their contents and can be dragged back out until you empty it yourself.

Permanent deletion exists, but it is deliberately hard to reach: it requires Expert Mode to be enabled and a separate typed confirmation for that specific action. Two independent gates, not a checkbox.

Before a file can enter a removal list at all, its path passes a guard that resolves symlinks and then applies a series of hard blocks. These are structural — a module cannot opt out of them, and a bug in one scanner cannot bypass them.

On APFS volumes iSweepy attempts to take a local snapshot before a significant clean, so the state can be rolled back through Time Machine if something unexpected happens.

If the snapshot cannot be created, the app tells you plainly and lets you decide whether to continue without that safety net — it does not silently proceed.

Every operation lands in a local activity log: which module ran, how many items, how many bytes, and when. My Activity turns that log into readable history and can export it as PDF, CSV or JSON.

The log is a plain file on your Mac. It is never uploaded, and you can delete it whenever you like.

A few maintenance tasks — flushing DNS, reindexing Spotlight, verifying the boot disk — need administrator authorisation. macOS shows its own password prompt; iSweepy never sees or stores your password.

These commands are fixed at build time. The app cannot construct an arbitrary shell command, and the few that accept a value (a snapshot date, a launch item label) validate it against a strict pattern before it is used.