Troubleshooting & FAQ

Some items failed to delete

After a cleanup you may see a banner saying a few items failed. DevCleaner never hides this. Click it to see exactly which items and why. The usual reasons:

• The file is in use. An app holding the file open can prevent deletion. Quit the app and clean again.
• Permissions. Some caches are owned by the system. Use the administrator retry below.
• A file provider did not respond (iCloud Drive, a booted simulator). These are skipped on purpose so DevCleaner never hangs.

The administrator clean prompt

When an item is protected by macOS permissions, DevCleaner offers to retry as administrator and asks for your password. This is macOS's standard privileged-helper flow. If a privileged clean fails, DevCleaner shows the error rather than pretending it worked. It is always safe to decline; you simply keep that protected item.

FAQ

Why did the reclaimable size change on its own?

Caches grow as you build and shrink as you clean. DevCleaner rescans in the background, so the number tracks reality. A category showing zero just means there is nothing to reclaim there right now.

Why is there no Dock icon?

DevCleaner is a menu bar app, so it lives by the clock, not in the Dock. While the main window is open it temporarily appears in the Dock and ⌘Tab; close it and it tucks back into the menu bar. Look for the wand icon.

It warned me an app is still running. Should I clean anyway?

Better to quit the app first. Cleaning the cache of a running app, Xcode mid-build for example, can break work in progress. The warning lets you cancel or proceed deliberately. See staying safe.

Will cleaning sign me out of my apps?

No. Cookies, local storage, sessions, credential files and SSH keys are never deleted, regardless of category. Your logins are protected by design.

How do updates work?

DevCleaner updates itself with Sparkle. Leave automatic update checks on in Settings → Updates, or check manually any time. Read the latest release notes.

What data does DevCleaner send?

After a cleanup it can contribute a single anonymous number, the bytes freed, to the public counter on devcleaner.app. No paths, no identifiers, nothing else. Turn it off in Settings → General → Privacy. See the privacy policy.

Is it safe to delete node_modules and package caches?

Generally yes, they rebuild on the next install, but there are nuances. Our npm, Yarn & pnpm guide walks through each one.