Getting started with SpaceUp Mac

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Getting started takes about two minutes. Download the DMG from the homepage, drag SpaceUp Mac into Applications, open it, and click Scan My Mac. Your first scan and your first clean are both free, with no account to create.

What you need

  • A Mac running macOS 14 or later. Apple Silicon and Intel both work.
  • Nothing else. No account, no email, no payment up front.

Install SpaceUp Mac

1. Download the DMG

Grab it from the homepage. The file is SpaceUpMac.dmg, served straight from this site.

2. Drag it to Applications

Open the DMG and drag the SpaceUp Mac icon into your Applications folder. That’s the entire install. There’s no installer wizard, and the app doesn’t add any background daemons.

3. Open it

SpaceUp Mac is signed and notarized by Apple, so Gatekeeper verifies it and opens it like any other Mac app. No scary warning, no right-click workaround.

Run your first clean

4. Turn on Full Disk Access

On the Home screen you’ll see a card that says Turn on Full Disk Access. Click Open Settings, flip the switch for SpaceUp Mac, and the app picks it up automatically. macOS hides some junk folders until you allow this, and the access is used only to measure and clean the folders the app shows you.

It never asks for your admin password, and you can revoke the access anytime in System Settings. The app keeps working with whatever access remains. Full walkthrough in Full Disk Access, explained.

5. Click Scan My Mac

Back on Home, hit Scan My Mac. The scan runs entirely on your Mac and your files never leave it. Give it a minute; one real scan turned up 117.45 GB of junk.

6. Review the results

Every scan ends on a review screen, and nothing is removed until you approve it there. Green means safe and pre-ticked, and every item shows its size plus a plain reason it exists.

Where things go depends on what they are. Your own files, like big files and apps you uninstall, move to the Trash so you can undo. Rebuildable junk like caches and logs is cleared directly, because trashing gigabytes of cache would just move the problem. A few clearly labeled items, like old iPhone backups, are permanent and say so before you approve them. The details are in Cleaning and safety and Why Trash first.

7. Hit Clean Up

Untick anything you’d rather keep, then click Clean Up. Your first clean is free. After that, unlimited cleaning is $4.99 one time, with no subscription.

After your first clean

A few things worth knowing once you’re set up:

  • Menu bar quick scan. SpaceUp Mac sits in your menu bar, so you can start a scan without opening the full window.
  • Desktop widget. Add the SpaceUp Mac widget to see how much room is left at a glance, and tap it to scan.
  • More than caches. The sidebar also has Dev Mode for developer and AI cleanup, Apps for uninstalling with leftover discovery, and Deep Scan for finding big files. If you write code, start with Dev Mode.

If anything doesn’t work the way this page says, email [email protected] and you’ll get a real answer.

Stuck on something? Email [email protected] and you will get a fast, human answer.