Stow

See what your Mac is holding, and what it can let go.

Website · Download · MIT licensed

Stow is a macOS storage analyzer. It measures the places that quietly fill a disk (caches, package stores, Xcode leftovers, simulators, old downloads) and sorts each one by what you can safely do with it. Everything happens on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded.

Screenshots use Stow's demo mode with made-up data.

What it shows

The storage bar across the top splits the disk into five groups. Click a group to see its shelf.

Shelf	Meaning	Stow can move it to the Bin
Safe to delete	Caches, logs, build leftovers. Apps rebuild them.	Yes
Optional	Useful, often replaceable: package stores, SDKs, simulators, installers.	Yes, after a look
Not mandatory	Your files and apps. The Mac runs without them.	No
Mandatory	What the account needs: keychains, preferences, mail.	No
Not sorted	Mostly macOS itself, plus folders the scan does not open.	No

Large files lists anything over 500 MB, wherever it sits.

Using it

• Scan measures the Mac. The result is saved, so the next launch opens straight onto it.
• Click a row to see why it is on its shelf, when it was modified, created and last opened, and what is inside.
• Use a folder's arrow to look inside it.
• ⌘-click to select several rows, then move them to the Bin together. ⌘A selects every row that can go and Esc clears the selection.
• ⇧⌘G goes to any folder by path, like Finder's Go to Folder. Outside the usual places, only caches, installers and dependencies can be moved.
• Ask AI builds a prompt about the selected folder and opens it in ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor or Codex, or copies it. Stow never sends it anywhere itself.
• The header buttons switch between light, dark, and matching macOS, and between roomy and compact rows.

Moving to the Bin is always the way out: you can put things back from Finder. Empty Bin is the only permanent step, and Stow asks first.

The word follows macOS: in British, Indian and other Commonwealth English it is the Bin, and in US English the Trash.

Full Disk Access

macOS hides some folders, the Bin among them, unless an app has Full Disk Access. Stow still works without it. Those sizes may read low, the bin's size shows only once Stow has moved something there, and a note says how many folders were hidden. To let Stow see everything, add it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access.

Install

Download the .dmg for your Mac from the latest release: arm64 for Apple silicon, x64 for Intel. Then drag Stow to Applications.

Stow is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it opens like any other app.

Updates

Stow checks GitHub for a newer release a few seconds after it opens, and every six hours after that. You can also choose Stow → Check for Updates…. When one is out, an Update button appears in the header. It shows the release notes and downloads the update inside Stow; Restart to update then replaces the app and opens the new version. Stow has to be in a folder it can write to, such as Applications, for that to work.

Privacy

Scanning, sizes and file details stay on your Mac. The only network requests Stow makes are reading public release information from GitHub, and downloading an update when you ask for one.

Develop

Requires macOS, Node 22 or later, and Rust. Stow keeps its scan in sqlite (stow.sqlite in the app's user data folder).

npm install
npm run dev

Command	What it does
npm run dev	Runs the app with hot reload
npm run demo	Runs the app with made-up data and a separate profile, for screenshots
npm run typecheck	Type-checks the renderer and shared TypeScript
npm test	Runs the unit tests in src/shared
cargo test --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml	Runs the Rust unit tests
npm run build	Builds the Mac app with Tauri
npm run dist	Builds disk images for both chips

Releases

.github/workflows/release.yml typechecks and tests on every push to main or tauri and every pull request, and builds disk images on main and on version tags. Pushing a version tag also publishes a GitHub release with the .dmg for both chips. The tag must match version in package.json.

npm version 0.2.0 --no-git-tag-version   # bump package.json, then commit it
git tag v0.2.0
git push origin main v0.2.0

Installed copies of Stow find the release on their next update check.

Website

The website in site/ is an Astro page published to GitHub Pages by .github/workflows/site.yml whenever the site, the screenshots or the icon change on main. Preview it locally with npm --prefix site install and npm --prefix site run dev.

License

MIT

Built with

Tauri 2, Rust, React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS 4, Radix primitives (shadcn/ui style), lucide icons, and the Geist typeface.

See AGENTS.md for how the code is organized and the rules that keep Stow safe to use.