It's hard to believe it has already been one full year
One year ago, after years of fighting with Mac storage issues, I created TrashPanda. Since then, it has grown to about 500* users and each release has added something to the mix. Every time I think it's fully featured, I discover more shortcomings in either my own program or how various frontier programs are handling their storage needs. The last year in particular has yielded an assortment of challenges with local AI models, vibecoding poor practices and bug fixes (by Apple) for macOS Tahoe.
I'll continue building and adding to TrashPanda when the need arises. TrashPanda remains fully offline with no AI integration. While this makes auto-updating impossible, I am committed to having no telemetry emitted from the application.
* TrashPanda is deployed through MDM in some organisations, and since it emits no telemetry I have no way of knowing how many machines those licences cover.
One color per tool
Twelve destinations, twelve identity colors. A screen is recognisable before you read a word of it.
Watchtower
A read-only audit of how your Mac is set up. Watchtower never changes anything. It looks, and it tells you what it found.
- 01Startup items: Every mechanism by which software auto-runs on your Mac, with its signing details.
- 02Security settings: SIP, Gatekeeper, FileVault, the firewall and remote access, read and reported.
- 03Privacy permissions: Which apps hold which grants: camera, microphone, screen recording, full disk.
- 04Network config: How your Mac is reachable, and what is listening.
- 05Browser extensions: What is installed in your browsers and what it can see.
Watchtower is not antivirus. Findings are evidence, not verdicts. It reports what it sees so you can decide.
Hide any finding you have already reviewed. It comes back if it changes.
Downloads Detox
Your Downloads folder, sorted into plain-English piles instead of one endless list. You see what a thing actually is before you decide whether it stays.
Rebuilt from the ground up
- A new home screen: pick your tool from illustrated cards instead of a list
- The sidebar is gone; every tool now gets the full width of the window
- Each tool has its own color, so you always know where you are
- Settings moved into a drawer, so the app opens on your content, not on chrome
Fixed and changed
- The logs panel no longer resizes the window out from under you
- Now requires macOS 14 or later
Still completely offline
No accounts, no telemetry, no network code. 4.0 changed how TrashPanda looks and what it can audit. It did not change the part where nothing leaves your Mac.