AppCleaner
Active · Website
Freeware macOS app uninstaller from FreeMacSoft: drop an application onto the window and it finds the related files (caches, preferences, support files) scattered across the system for deletion; SmartDelete watches the Trash and offers to remove leftovers when an app is trashed. In continuous maintenance since 2007; current 3.7 (September 2026) targets macOS 15+, with parallel downloads reaching back to macOS 10.10.
- Platforms
- Interface
- Tech stack
- Closed source; Cocoa app, presumed Objective-C; uses the Sparkle in-app updater (per 3.3 release notes)
- Features
- Dev-junk cleaning
- Not a focus
- Development
- Unknown · original author still leadsPublished by FreeMacSoft since 2007; team size not disclosed.
- License
- ProprietaryFreeware; no license terms published on site
- Price
- Donation-supportedFree; PayPal 'Donate' link in site nav; no paid tier
- Launched
- 2007first_release_at
- First release
- 2007
- Domain registered
- Apr 25, 2007 (freemacsoft.net)
- Last seen alive
- Oct 24, 2026
Checks
Mechanical checks derived from the fields above. Each row is one fact; "not yet checked" means exactly that, not a failure. There is no composite score; read them together.
| Track record | about 19 years |
|---|---|
| Source published | No |
| Release signing | Not yet checked |
| Security contact | Not yet checked |
| Reproducible builds | Not yet checked |
| Telemetry | Not yet checked |
| Runs elevated | Not yet checked |
| Auto-update channel | Not yet checked |
| Recent activity | Last seen 7 days ago |
Relations
- name collision UpdateStar AppCleaner
Unrelated Windows freeware cleaner from UpdateStar GmbH (browser/cache/registry cleaning; in UpdateStar's database since 2011) - same name, different product and company.
Research notes
- The canonical free macOS app uninstaller: on-site release notes start at 2.2.1 (Oct 26, 2013), but the app is older still - 1.0.2 was already being blogged in June 2007, months after the freemacsoft.net domain was registered.
- Still maintained: version 3.7 (Sept 22, 2026) adds support for 'macOS 27 (Golden Gate)' and prompts for Full Disk Access.
- Versioned downloads per macOS release on the homepage: 3.7 for macOS 15+, 3.6.8 for 10.14-15.6, 3.6 for 10.13, 3.4 for 10.10-10.12 - unusually deep backward-OS support.
- The app every 2026-wave macOS uninstaller is implicitly compared against; Broom's comparison-page SEO playbook lists AppCleaner among the incumbents it targets.
- FreeMacSoft stablemates: LiteIcon and Tiles.
- Name collision: 'AppCleaner' is also an unrelated Windows freeware cleaner by UpdateStar GmbH, in their database since 2011.
Sources
| URL | Role | Status | Checked | Archive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/ | homepage | 200 | 2026-10-24 | wayback |
| freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/releasenotes.html | other | 200 | 2026-10-24 |
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