SweepyMac / Support
Support
SweepyMac 0.1.0 for macOS
One person makes this app, and reads every message sent to it. Preview requests, bugs, questions and suggestions all go to the same address.
Replies usually go out within two or three days. Please write in English if you can.
Reporting a problem
The more of this you can include, the faster it gets fixed:
- Your macOS version — the Apple menu, then About This Mac.
- The app version — the SweepyMac menu, then About SweepyMac.
- Which module you were in, what you did, and what happened instead.
- A screenshot if anything looked wrong. ⌘⇧4 then Space captures a single window.
- If a file went missing, look in the Trash first — that is where everything SweepyMac removes goes — and say whether it was there.
- If the app quit unexpectedly: open Console, choose Crash Reports in the sidebar, and attach the newest report whose name starts with SweepyMac.
Common questions
Can I buy it yet?
Not yet. SweepyMac is in limited preview while the release build is signed and notarized. Write to the address above and a build comes back with a thirty-day key; when that runs out, ask again and you get a preview key that lasts to the end of 2026. The day the notarized build exists, this page grows a download button and a price.
macOS says the app is from an unidentified developer.
The preview build is not notarized yet, so Gatekeeper stops it the first time. Right-click SweepyMac in your Applications folder, choose Open, then Open again in the dialog; every launch after that is normal. That step disappears with the notarized release.
Why does it want Full Disk Access?
The things worth cleaning — caches, logs, leftovers — live outside an app's sandbox. Without that permission macOS asks about folders one at a time and quietly skips some, so a scan under-reports. Grant it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access. SweepyMac uses it for the scans you start and nothing else, and the app still runs without it; it just sees less, and says so.
It cleaned something I wanted to keep.
Look in the Trash: everything SweepyMac removes goes there, and the toast that appears right after a clean has an Undo in it. Only two paths skip the Trash — emptying the Trash itself, and removing a system-owned threat — and each one asks first, in its own dialog.
Is the malware scanner an antivirus?
Not a replacement for one. It checks file contents — SHA-256 hashes and byte-pattern rules — along with the places malware hides to survive a reboot: launch agents, daemons, configuration profiles. The definitions update over the air and are signature-checked before use. But it runs when you ask it to; there is no real-time, on-access engine, so it sits alongside a full AV suite rather than replacing it. It also tells you what it could not read — the files only root can open are listed, not silently skipped.
Does the Cloud Cleanup module delete my iCloud files?
No. It evicts the local copy of files you have already downloaded. They stay in iCloud, the Finder still lists them, and opening one downloads it again.
How many Macs does a key cover?
Two, the preview key included. Moving to a new Mac means activating there with the same key; if you have retired a Mac and need its slot back, write in.
Does it phone home?
For one file. SweepyMac fetches its malware definitions from a static host and checks them against a signature before using them — a failed check keeps the old definitions rather than trusting the new file. There is no account, no telemetry and no analytics, and scan results never leave your Mac. See the privacy policy.
How do I uninstall SweepyMac?
Quit it and drag it from Applications to the Trash — the irony is not lost on us. Its settings and licence live in ~/Library/Application Support/SweepyMac; delete that folder and nothing is left. If you let it install the privileged helper that runs the maintenance tasks, take that out first: Performance, then Remove helper.
Feature requests
Send them. The signed, notarized release is the current work; after that, a content-based malware engine to sit beside the signature sweep is the big one on the list. Preview feedback decides what comes with it.