mcdu - Modern Disk Usage Analyzer & Developer Cleanup Tool

A fast, modern disk usage analyzer with an integrated developer cleanup tool, written in Rust. Think ncdu meets CCleaner for developers.

Features

• Disk usage browser - Navigate your filesystem with vim-style keybindings, color-coded by size
• Developer cleanup - Scan for build artifacts, caches, and reclaimable space across 18+ ecosystems
• Orphaned app data (macOS) - Detect leftover data from uninstalled applications in ~/Library
• Safe deletion - Double-confirmation dialogs, dry-run mode, and JSON audit logging
• Fast scanning - Background async scanning with live progress, jwalk parallelism for cleanup
• Cross-platform - macOS (APFS) and Linux (ext4, btrfs, xfs)

Installation

Homebrew (macOS and Linux)

brew install mikalv/mcdu/mcdu

AUR (Arch Linux)

yay -S mcdu

Prebuilt Binaries

Download signed/static binaries from GitHub Releases:

| Platform | Architecture | File | |----------|-------------|------| | Linux | x86_64 (static musl) | mcdu-linux-x86_64-musl.tar.gz | | Linux | aarch64 (static musl) | mcdu-linux-aarch64-musl.tar.gz | | Linux | x86_64 (glibc) | mcdu-linux-x86_64-gnu.tar.gz | | macOS | Apple Silicon | mcdu-macos-aarch64.tar.gz | | macOS | Intel | mcdu-macos-x86_64.tar.gz |

# Example: Linux x86_64
wget https://github.com/mikalv/mcdu/releases/latest/download/mcdu-linux-x86_64-musl.tar.gz
tar xzf mcdu-linux-x86_64-musl.tar.gz
sudo mv mcdu /usr/local/bin/

macOS binaries are code-signed. Checksums are listed in each release's notes.

Cargo

cargo install mcdu

From Source

git clone https://github.com/mikalv/mcdu.git
cd mcdu
cargo build --release
./target/release/mcdu

Usage

Disk Usage Browser

mcdu              # browse current directory
mcdu /path/to     # browse specific directory

| Key | Action | |-----|--------| | j/k or arrows | Navigate | | Enter/l | Enter directory | | Backspace/h | Go up | | d | Delete selected | | r | Rescan selected | | R | Rescan all | | C | Switch to cleanup mode | | ? | Help | | q | Quit |

Color coding: red (>100 GB), yellow (>10 GB), cyan (>1 GB), green (<1 GB).

Developer Cleanup

mcdu cleanup            # scan default paths
mcdu cleanup ~/repos    # scan specific path

Scans for build artifacts, caches, and other reclaimable disk space across your development tools.

| Key | Action | |-----|--------| | Tab / 1-4 | Switch tabs (Overview, Categories, Files, Quarantine) | | j/k or arrows | Navigate | | Space | Toggle selection | | a / n | Select all / none | | d | Delete selected | | D | Dry run | | C | Rescan | | q | Back to disk browser |

Supported ecosystems: Rust/Cargo, Node.js, Python, Go, Java/JVM, Elixir/Erlang, Ruby, PHP, .NET, Zig, Deno, Swift/iOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, IDE caches, browser caches, system caches (Homebrew, Xcode, Trash).

Default scan paths: ~/Downloads, ~/Projects, ~/Code, ~/Developer, ~/repos, ~/dev, ~/src, ~/workspace

Orphaned App Data (macOS)

mcdu orphans              # scan for leftover data from uninstalled apps

Detects data in ~/Library (Caches, Application Support, Containers, Preferences, etc.) belonging to applications that are no longer installed. Items are shown unchecked by default for safe manual review.

Custom Configuration

Place a config file at ~/.config/mcdu/cleanup.toml:

scan_paths = ["~/myprojects", "~/work"]

[[rules]]
name = "custom-cache"
category = "Custom"
pattern = "**/.cache"
path = "${HOME}/myprojects"
match_type = "directory"

Rules from the config are merged with built-in defaults.

Architecture

crates/
  mcdu-core/     # Scanner, cleanup rules, config, platform detection
  mcdu-macos/    # macOS-specific: orphaned app data detection (cfg-gated)
  mcdu-tui/      # Ratatui app state, UI rendering, keybindings
  mcdu/          # CLI binary (clap), entry point

Key design decisions

• Async scanning - Directory scanning in background thread via mpsc channels
• Subtree pruning - filter_entry skips node_modules/target/etc. entirely during cleanup scan
• Safe defaults - Final confirm defaults to Cancel, all deletions are audit-logged
• Workspace crates - Core logic separated from TUI and CLI for testability

Dependencies

• ratatui + crossterm - Terminal UI
• walkdir / jwalk - Directory traversal (jwalk for parallel cleanup scanning)
• clap - CLI argument parsing
• serde / toml - Configuration
• rayon - Parallel processing

Platform Support

• macOS - Full support with APFS compatibility
• Linux - Full support (ext4, btrfs, xfs, etc.)

Building & Testing

cargo build            # debug build
cargo build --release  # optimized release build
cargo test             # run all workspace tests

License

MIT

Acknowledgments

Inspired by ncdu and the need to reclaim disk space eaten by node_modules and target/ directories.