What Does Tidymint Do With Your Data? Short Answer: Nothing

Why a cleaner needs to read your whole disk

To find what is taking up space, a cleaner has to look inside folders macOS keeps hidden: caches, logs, and data from Chrome, Slack or Mail. macOS locks these folders until you grant Full Disk Access in System Settings › Privacy & Security.

Apple describes this permission as letting an app access all files on your computer, including data from Mail, Messages and Safari, and Time Machine backups. In other words, choosing a cleaner means choosing who gets to look inside your Mac. So "does this app send anything out?" is exactly the right question to ask.

How Tidymint works: everything happens on your Mac

Think of Tidymint as a cleaner working inside your home: it walks through each room, notes what is big or old, and hands you a list. You mark what to throw out, and it carries those things to the Trash. It doesn't photograph your belongings for head office, and it leaves empty-handed.

1. Scan: Tidymint reads the name, size and date of files in the folders that usually fill up. The work runs on your Mac's own processor, with no internet needed.
2. Find duplicates: the app compares file contents by computing a "fingerprint" for each file, also on your Mac. Thumbnails come from macOS itself.
3. Clean: whatever you select moves to the macOS Trash. Nothing is uploaded, and nothing is deleted outright. Changed your mind? Click Undo.

Tidymint has no account, no ads and no analytics (nothing counts which buttons you click or how long the app is open). Unless you choose to send feedback, no server knows who you are or what is on your Mac.

When Tidymint goes online

Only in these cases, and you know about each one:

Beyond these, Tidymint doesn't connect anywhere. Unplug, turn off Wi-Fi, and scanning and cleaning still work.

Check it yourself in 2 minutes

You don't have to take our word for it:

1. Turn off Wi-Fi, open Tidymint, then scan and clean something. It all works the same.
2. Open Activity Monitor and choose the Network tab. It lists each app with the data it has sent (Sent Bytes). Use Tidymint for a while and look at its row: the number barely moves.
3. Read the code: all of Tidymint's source is public on GitHub under the MIT license. You don't need to read code yourself: people who can, do, and anything odd would be visible.
4. Revoke access any time: go to Privacy & Security › Full Disk Access and turn Tidymint off. The app still runs; it just sees fewer folders.

One honest limit: Tidymint is not notarized by Apple yet, so the first launch needs "Open Anyway". Notarization means Apple scans an app for malware before it runs freely. Until then, the public source code is how you can check it. The steps, with screenshots, are in the install guide.

What about the tidymint.app website?

To be fully transparent: the website uses Google Analytics to count visits, only if you click Accept on the cookie banner. Click Decline and no analytics cookies are stored. The Tidymint app on your Mac has no analytics at all.

Cracked copies of paid cleaners are a known way password-stealing malware spreads. More on that in Free CleanMyMac alternatives.