Mole: Help My Mac Breathe Again

Introduction

When macOS feels slow for no clear reason, the cause is often ordinary buildup: caches, logs, leftover app data, and rebuildable project artifacts. This note uses Mole, an open-source macOS CLI, to find that weight and remove it without handing the disk to a closed cleaner app.

Mole is macOS-only, supports macOS 12 and newer, and must never be run with sudo. The current release is V1.59.1.

Installation

Homebrew

brew install mole

This installs the CLI only.

Install script

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tw93/mole/main/install.sh | bash

Pin a version instead of following main:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tw93/mole/main/install.sh | bash -s -- 1.59.1

To avoid sudo during future updates, install into your home directory:

mkdir -p "$HOME/.local/bin"

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tw93/mole/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --prefix "$HOME/.local/bin"

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Usage

Open the menu

mo

mo alone opens Clean, Uninstall, Optimize, Analyze, and Status. Arrow keys and Vim keys both work.

Preview cleanup first

Mole is not dry-run by default. Always preview destructive work:

mo clean --dry-run

sudo -v && mo clean --dry-run

The second form gives a fuller preview because unprivileged previews skip paths that need administrator access.

Purge project artifacts

purge is separate from clean and targets rebuildable files such as node_modules, dist, target, venv, .next, DerivedData, and Pods:

mo purge --dry-run

mo purge --yes

Recent activity is skipped by default, nested repositories are protected, and worktrees themselves are never removed.

Find space, then check health

mo analyze

mo status

mo history --limit 20

Use analyze to see what is using space, status for a read-only health check, and history to review what was deleted.

Proof

Not a stock screenshot — my own Mac after one run:

References

• Mole repository
• Mole releases
• Homebrew