DevCleaner is a free, open-source Mac utility that identifies and removes obsolete Xcode support files — simulator runtimes, derived data, documentation caches, and old device support folders — freeing tens of gigabytes without requiring you to touch the terminal.
What is DevCleaner?
DevCleaner is a lightweight macOS app purpose-built for iOS and macOS developers who find that Xcode's maintenance habits leave a lot to be desired. After a year or two of active development, the hidden caches Xcode accumulates can quietly consume 50 GB or more of your SSD. DevCleaner surfaces all of that waste in a single, clean interface and lets you decide exactly what to delete.
The project is open-source and hosted on GitHub, which means you can audit every line of code before it ever touches your filesystem — a meaningful assurance when you're granting an app permission to delete gigabytes of data.
What does DevCleaner do best?
DevCleaner excels at giving you a granular, categorised map of Xcode's support directory before you delete anything. Unlike blunt-force disk cleaners such as CleanMyMac or DaisyDisk that require you to navigate folder trees yourself, DevCleaner understands the semantics of each cache type.
- Derived Data: build artefacts that Xcode regenerates on demand — usually safe to purge entirely.
- Old Device Support: paired-device symbols for iOS versions you no longer test against. These are large and rarely revisited.
- Simulator Runtimes: full OS images for iOS, watchOS, and tvOS simulators. A single runtime can exceed 5 GB; older ones accumulate invisibly.
- Documentation Cache: downloaded developer documentation that Xcode will simply re-fetch when needed.
- Archives & Crash Logs: surfaced for review, with dates, so you can keep the recent builds and bin the rest.
I've been running DevCleaner after every major Xcode release for over a year. Each pass reliably recovers between 20 GB and 40 GB on my machine — storage that would otherwise require a painful manual spelunk through ~/Library/Developer/.
Is DevCleaner free?
Yes — DevCleaner is completely free to download and use. There is no Pro tier, no subscription, and no in-app purchase. It is distributed under an open-source licence and available directly from GitHub. If you prefer a notarised binary delivered through the Mac App Store, that version exists and is also free; the developer simply offers both channels.
Who should use DevCleaner?
DevCleaner is squarely aimed at Apple-platform developers — anyone who regularly opens Xcode is the target user. If you are not a developer and Xcode is not installed, there is nothing here for you. But if you are:
- Solo indie developers on a MacBook with a 512 GB SSD will feel the benefit most acutely. Xcode's caches grow proportionally to how many simulators, device targets, and Swift packages you juggle.
- Team leads doing quarterly machine hygiene — running DevCleaner quarterly takes under five minutes and is far more surgical than wiping derived data from the command line blindly.
- Anyone preparing a machine for resale or migration who wants to reclaim space without accidentally deleting active project archives.
If you are looking for a general-purpose disk-space tool, DaisyDisk gives you a beautiful visual treemap of the whole volume, and CleanMyMac covers a broader maintenance surface. DevCleaner does one thing, but it does it with developer-aware intelligence that those tools simply cannot match for Xcode storage.
What are the best DevCleaner alternatives?
The closest dedicated alternative is running Xcode's own Xcode → Preferences → Locations panel and manually deleting Derived Data — free but blunt. For simulator runtimes specifically, xcodes (a CLI tool) lets you manage and prune Xcode installations including their bundled runtimes, though it's a different mental model. DaisyDisk will show you how large ~/Library/Developer/ is, but it won't label each subfolder with human-readable explanations the way DevCleaner does. CleanMyMac X has a Space Lens feature that overlaps in spirit, but it is a paid subscription product and not developer-aware at the same level of granularity.
For the specific job of auditing and clearing Xcode support files interactively, nothing I have tried matches DevCleaner's combination of clarity, precision, and zero cost.
How safe is DevCleaner to run?
Very safe in practice. DevCleaner never deletes anything without an explicit checkbox confirmation from you, and it clearly labels which items will be regenerated automatically by Xcode versus which (like old archives) will be gone permanently. The open-source codebase is auditable, and the Mac App Store edition is notarised by Apple. That said, I always recommend committing or archiving any active project before running any cleanup tool — belt-and-suspenders hygiene, not a DevCleaner-specific concern.
