Mint: A modern mac cleaner that puts safety and clarity before space
At this point, no one at TheSweetBits is a stranger to Mac cleaning tools. We have even done multiple roundups of the best tools to clean up storage space on your device. After a bit, though, many Mac cleaning tools look and work the same way.
Yet occasionally we come across something unique that blows our minds. Mint, a brand-new Mac cleaning tool, fits this description to the T. We’ve been using Mint on our Mac for a few weeks, and here’s what we think about what it offers.
What Is Mint and Who Makes It?
Mint is designed to be an all-in-one tool for analyzing, organizing, and cleaning up your Mac’s resources, and it can optimize both storage space and RAM. In this attempt, Mint offers a number of features, including visualizing disk storage, organizing files, and redacting sensitive files.
Mint is made by DZG Studio, an independent California studio. This single-developer studio made it out of their frustration of seeing the Disk Full error from macOS. And we are going to understand how effective the result is.
How We Tested Mint
We tested Mint on an M2 MacBook Air running the latest version of macOS 27 Golden Gate. It’s also a good time to mention that Mint is completely compatible with the latest macOS release from Apple.
This 4-year-old machine has 8GB of Unified Memory and 256GB of storage and is used for researching, writing, software testing, homelabbing, and a number of AI tools like Claude Code, Antigravity, and OpenCode.
We used Version 1.0.92 (107) of Mint for testing and screenshots, by the way.
As you can guess, working with 256GB of internal storage, the machine does face a lot of pressure. It also means we could use all the free storage we could get. Now, for context, we have used other tools, such as CleanMyMac, in the past. However, we wanted to check what Mint could do differently.
Hands-On: Setting up Mint
You can download Mint from the App Store or the official website. We have been testing the direct downloaded version, and don’t be surprised if the Mac App Store version is a little restrictive.
The installation is mostly direct and doesn’t take more than a few seconds. As you can guess, the app requires Full Disk Access, which is a must for fully-fledged Mac cleaning and optimization.
You also need an Internet connection to set up account-based registration. Past this point, however, Mint doesn’t need an Internet connection. Instead, everything happens on your local device.
Hands-On: The UI & Navigation
A completely modern, fresh UI design is one of the first things we noticed on Mint. It doesn’t look like any other Mac cleaning app we’ve come across yet. The sidebar lets you switch between multiple tools and settings pages.
The Home page is where Mint provides an overview of your Mac. As you can see, the setup is quite informative. At the top, you have a quick statistics bar that shows the amount of space you’ve reclaimed, memory released, and files organized, etc.
A menu-bar widget is also part of Mint, and it allows you to have an overview of your Mac’s current situation and the resources you can reclaim.
In conclusion, navigating the different cleaning/optimization options within Mint is easier than we thought. The new UI design doesn’t impede ease of use.
Hands-On: What Mint Does (and How Well)
First, we will take you through our experience with Mint and explore its effectiveness.
Storage analysis and the four categories
Storage analysis and cleaning are two major purposes for which Mint is made! Compared to other optimization tools we’ve tried before, Mint does it slightly differently. It offers a complete overview of what occupies your Mac’s storage and specifies what you can, cannot, and should delete.
To get started with this section, we ran a storage scan using Mint, and it took only a few seconds. Once the scan was done, it arranged the results into four sections: Optimizable, Safe to clean, Yours, and Keep. Now, this system solves one of the biggest questions we have while using cleaning apps: Is it safe to delete this folder/file?
Because Mint helps us make that distinction, the entire cleaning process matters. As you can see in the images above, Mint also adds multiple components to subcategories such as System junk, Caches, Log files, Duplicates & similar. We can always select one of these options to see specific components.
By the time you reach this stage, you also understand whether you should delete something. So, you can select the sub-components and click the right button. Mint also made sure that it doesn’t let us delete system-level or protected components.
In our experience, Mint’s Optimization function saved around 8GB without deleting any important files. This was in addition to several GB of space we reclaimed using the other functions. It’s been particularly great at removing a variety of junk/temporary files left by AI coding platforms like Claude Code and Codex.
Memory release
Memory release is another Mint feature that uses the same visual philosophy to provide us with a clear picture. On this side, it gives an overview of how your max Unified Memory is used, and the results are split into three categories: Hanging around, In use, and System & protected.
We can safely remove or quit applications in the hanging-around category because they are essentially using idle RAM. On the other hand, we can be a little more specific about the options in the in-use category because these are actively used applications.
And we can leave the third category alone. Once you have selected the apps you want to quit, click the free memory button, and Mint will do the rest. We’ve been using this feature occasionally since our machine has only 8GB of Unified Memory.
Folder organizer
Organizing files and folders into the right categories is a major part of optimizing your Mac’s storage space, and Mint helps with this through its folder organizer utility. This feature lets you do it based on a file’s name, type, language, metadata, and image content, and add them to a new subfolder.
We can guess how messy most of our Downloads folder is, and Mint can make things easier there. We also noted how quickly this folder organizer is. Even though Mint uses Apple’s Vision and language-analysis frameworks, everything stays on your device.
We should also appreciate the amount of detail put into this feature. For instance, you can decide whether Mint should consider subfolders within a folder. Similarly, there are options to schedule these scans. At the same time, it’s not as effective as some standalone AI-powered folder organizer tools.
Using Mint with AI agents (CLI and MCP)
If you’re someone who uses agency tools like Claude Code or Codex, you will be happy to know that Mint has built-in integration with AI agents through both CLI and MCP servers.
This means you can connect Mint to something like Claude Code and ask Claude Code to check what is up with your Mac. For instance, we can ask Claude Code to get insights from recent cleanup results or to find matches for rules we set. If you don’t want to use the GUI, you can always use the CLI.
In addition to these major features, Mint also includes two features we like to have: Uninstall and Redact. Uninstall lets you completely remove applications from your Mac, whereas Redact helps you delete a file without leaving any trace.
Is Mint Safe?
Compared to other Mac cleaners that we’ve seen, Mint prioritizes safety above all. As we said earlier, Mint can categorize its recommendations, and it doesn’t ask us to delete anything unless there’s a solid reason to. We’ve also noticed how all of its actions stay away from the system and protected directories.
Mint Pricing
Mint lets you choose between two plans: free and Mint Unlimited.
The free version lets you see what’s filling your disk, tidy folders into subcategories, free up memory, and also use CLI/MCP for insights. It also lets you reclaim 1 GB of storage and use auto care for a week.
If you are looking for unlimited access to cleaning and optimization, you should get Mint Unlimited, which costs $39.99. Considering the features it offers, we believe Mint’s pricing is reasonable.
There’s also a rent-to-own plan that costs $9.99 per month. If you do it for 4 months, you essentially own it. But if you want to see whether Mint works for you, you can try it for a month for just $9.99.
Mint is also available on Setapp, so if you already have a Setapp membership you can use it without buying a separate license.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Four-category scan makes it clear what’s safe to delete
- Never touches system or protected files, and cleanup goes to the Trash first
- Reclaimed close to 6GB a week from the system cache alone
- Fresh, easy-to-navigate interface with a handy storage history chart
- CLI and MCP support for AI agents like Claude Code
- One-time $39.99 price instead of a subscription
Cons
- Free tier caps cleanup at a one-time 1 GB
- The Mac App Store version is more restricted than the direct download
FAQs
Is Mint free to use?
Yes, up to a point. You can scan, organize folders, release memory, and use the CLI and MCP tools for free. Cleanup, however, stops after a one-time 1 GB allowance, and Auto Care runs for only a week.
Which macOS versions does Mint support?
Mint requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later. It also worked without issues on macOS 27 Golden Gate, which we ran on an M2 MacBook Air for this review.
Does Mint upload my files or scan results?
No. File analysis happens on your Mac, and even the folder organizer works on-device. You only need an Internet connection while setting up your account.
Mint vs. CleanMyMac: which one should you choose?
It depends on what you need. CleanMyMac adds extras like malware scanning, whereas Mint does a better job of explaining what’s safe to delete and costs $39.99 once. If clarity matters more to you than an all-in-one suite, Mint is the better fit.
Should I download Mint from the App Store or the official website?
We’d go with the direct download, since the Mac App Store version is more restricted. It’s also the version you can install through Homebrew and use with Mint’s Raycast extension.
Final Verdict
As we come to the end, we can make a few things clear about Mint.
One, compared to other Mac cleaning tools we’ve tried, Mint focuses on clarity and safety. The novel UI design also deserves a lot of praise because it turns the Mac cleaning/optimization process into something fun. We also love how effective the results were.
In one testing instance, we were able to clean up 10GB of storage space, which is no simple amount. It also does a great job of optimizing RAM consumption. We’ve also loved the folder organization features that Mint brings to the table.
Considering the features we get, Mint seems to be reasonably priced as well. We still wish there were a less restrictive free plan because 1GB doesn’t even scratch the surface. That said, the free plan lets everyone try out what Mint offers before committing. Also, some features, like organization, are free for all.
Published on Oct. 12, 2026, by TheSweetBits Team