Tidy My Mac vs CleanMyMac

Is CleanMyMac safe?

Yes. CleanMyMac is made by MacPaw, a software company with its headquarters in Kyiv and an office in Boston, and it is notarized by Apple, which means Apple has checked it for malware. It shows what it found before it deletes anything, and you can untick whatever you want to keep.

Two things are worth knowing. Like any cleaner, it clears caches, and apps are a little slower while they rebuild them. And a few of its maintenance tasks, such as freeing up RAM and repairing disk permissions, do little on current macOS; see what actually speeds up a Mac.

What CleanMyMac costs

• Yearly: $39.95 for one Mac. Discounts, when MacPaw runs them, apply to the first year.
• One-time purchase: $119.95 for one Mac. It gets updates for the current major version only; a new major version is a new purchase.
• Monthly, and plans for 2 or 5 Macs, which cost less per Mac.
• Setapp includes CleanMyMac in its monthly subscription, along with other apps.

Tidy My Mac is $19.99 for the first year and $59.99 a year after that, for one Mac. Both come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Is there a free version of CleanMyMac?

Not really. Without a plan, CleanMyMac scans your Mac and shows what it found, but cleaning, maintenance and malware removal stay locked. The 7-day trial unlocks everything, but MacPaw's store asks for your payment details first, and the trial turns into a paid plan unless you cancel it. Tidy My Mac's 7-day trial needs only your email address, and simply ends.

If you'd rather not pay at all, macOS does much of it for free; these guides show how: free up disk space, uninstall apps completely and clear the cache.

Where they are the same

For cleanup, the two apps do the same jobs: one scan for the whole Mac (Smart Care in CleanMyMac, Smart Scan in Tidy My Mac), a junk and cache cleaner, large and old files, a visual disk map (Space Lens, Disk Map), duplicates and similar photos, an uninstaller that removes leftovers, app updates, startup items and a CPU and memory monitor.

Where Tidy My Mac does more

CleanMyMac's Protection module finds and removes malware, using MacPaw's Moonlock engine, and warns you about new installs. MacPaw keeps real-time blocking, the firewall and the security checks for its separate Moonlock app. Tidy My Mac has them in the same app and the same subscription:

• Real-time antivirus for new files, and ransomware protection that watches for files being encrypted.
• A per-app outgoing firewall, which macOS doesn't have.
• Web Protection, which blocks phishing, scam and malware sites, ads and trackers in every browser and app.
• A scam message checker, a score for your macOS security settings, a Wi-Fi check, and alerts for apps with known vulnerabilities.

Where CleanMyMac does more

• It runs on macOS 11 Big Sur and later; Tidy My Mac needs macOS 26 Tahoe.
• Cloud Cleanup shows large files in iCloud Drive, Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox.
• Its menu bar app shows battery, network and connected devices at a glance.
• It's sold in Setapp and the Mac App Store too, and has plans for several Macs. The App Store edition leaves out system junk, maintenance tasks and some privacy tools, because of Apple's rules.

Switching from CleanMyMac

1. If you have a subscription, cancel it in your MacPaw Account, or in the App Store or Setapp if you bought it there.
2. Quit CleanMyMac and its menu bar app, then remove it, along with its helper and the files it keeps in your Library. Tidy My Mac's Uninstaller does this in one step.
3. Start the free trial, and run Smart Scan.

Prices and features were checked on MacPaw's own store and help pages on October 29, 2026. We make Tidy My Mac, so read this page with that in mind. See the full comparison for MacKeeper, Intego, Malwarebytes and the other apps.