Comparison · read from their own pages on 24 September 2026
What the others cost, and what they do
CleanMyMac and MacKeeper are the two apps people mean by “a Mac cleaner”. Both are bigger than this one and both do things it will not do. The differences worth paying attention to are the price model, the four developer categories where the space on a Mac that builds software actually is, and the two buttons RefreshYourMac refuses to ship.
Price
Nothing here is converted. A converted price is a number nobody is actually charged, so each figure is quoted in the currency the seller showed us. MacPaw prices by country and their store showed euro; their App Store listing shows dollars, so both are here.
| RefreshYourMac | CleanMyMac | MacKeeper | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Made by | Caddora | MacPaw Way Ltd | Clario Tech FZCO |
| Free without paying | Yesevery category scans, rates and lists what it found. Cleaning is what a licence buys | a free tier exists; we have not measured its limitsa free tier exists; we have not measured its limits | a free tier exists; we have not measured its limitsa free tier exists; we have not measured its limits |
| One-time purchase | Yes$44.99, once. A year of CleanMyMac is $39.99 — and then there is a second year | Yes€119.95 for 1 Mac from MacPaw; the App Store still lists a CleanMyMac X one-time at $89.99 | Nosubscription only |
| Yearly | Nonothing recurring | $39.99/yr on the App Store · €39.95/yr from MacPaw · Plus $65.99/yr$39.99/yr on the App Store · €39.95/yr from MacPaw · Plus $65.99/yr | $71.40 for the first year, 1 Mac. Their page shows it against a $131.40 list price$71.40 for the first year, 1 Mac. Their page shows it against a $131.40 list price |
| Monthly | No | $9.99/mo · Plus $15.99/mo$9.99/mo · Plus $15.99/mo | $10.95/mo$10.95/mo |
| Account needed | Nonothing to sign into | Yes | Yes |
A subscription is the right model for anything with a running cost behind it — a malware feed, a VPN, a breach-monitoring service. MacKeeper sells all three and charges accordingly. This app has no running cost — it stores nothing, runs no server and sends nothing about your Mac anywhere — so it is sold once.
Features
The RefreshYourMac column is measured against the current build. The other two are read from their own feature pages and are not re-checked on every change — treat them as those apps on 24 September 2026.
| RefreshYourMac | CleanMyMac | MacKeeper | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caches, logs, Trash, mail attachments | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| App uninstaller, with leftovers | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Unused applications | Yesa real last-used date, from three sources | Partlyuninstaller only | YesSmart Uninstaller |
| Large and old files | Yesover 200 MB, four folders | YesMy Clutter | Yes |
| Duplicate files | Yesexact, SHA-256 | Yes | Yes |
| The same picture saved again | Yespixels compared in colour; the best copy is kept and never offered for deletion | Yes | Yes |
| Look-alike pictures (bursts, near matches) | Nobuilt, measured, removed — it called two different bills the same picture | Yes | Yes |
| Xcode: DerivedData, device support, archives | Yes | Partlypartial, folded into “junk” | No |
| iOS and Android simulators and runtimes | Yesthrough simctl, so the sizes are the ones the tool itself reports | No | No |
| node_modules, Pods, Gradle, Homebrew, pip | Yes | No | No |
| Running simulators and log watchers, shut down | Yes | No | No |
| CPU, memory and thermal readings | Yesread-only: swap rate, compressor ratio, pressure, throttling | PartlyPerformance, plus a RAM purge | PartlyMemory Cleaner |
| Memory purge button | Refused, and measured insteada row saying what the button would free on your Mac, and what macOS would read straight back | Yes | Yes |
| Malware scanner | Refused, and measured insteadXProtect’s signature version and date, and Gatekeeper’s state, read from your own Mac | Yes | Yes |
| Maintenance tasks | Yesseven | Yes | Partly |
| App updater | No | Yes | Partly |
| VPN, ad blocking, ID theft monitoring | No | No | Yes |
| Scheduled auto-clean | Partlya timer inside the menu bar app, so it only fires while the app is running. Theirs is a background agent — not the same guarantee | Yes | Yes |
| Background agent running all the time | Noa menu bar app and nothing else | Yes | Yes |
| A safety rating on every category | Yesfour levels, and the rating decides what the buttons may do | Noone-click “junk” | No |
| Move files to another drive instead of deleting | Yes | No | No |
| Nothing selected for deletion until you ask | Yes | Partlyauto-selects | Partlyauto-selects |
- has it
- narrower than it sounds
- does not
- refused, with the measurement shown instead
The two rows with a ↺ are the whole argument
A memory purge and a malware scan are the two features this app cannot do honestly. Rather than leave a gap, each is a row on the Maintenance screen that states what the button would actually do on your own Mac: how much memory is genuinely spare against how much macOS would read straight back, and XProtect's real signature version and date. A measurement can be checked. A refusal has to be taken on trust.
Why a RAM purge does nothing →
What macOS already does about malware →