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DaisyDisk is a disk space analyser that presents your storage as an interactive, colour-coded map. This page covers whether version 4.34.2 will run on your Mac and what you get for the effort.
Native support: Apple Silicon and Intel
Yes. The application supports both Apple Silicon (ARM) and 64‑bit Intel processors natively, so it runs without translation on current and many older Macs.
What version of macOS does DaisyDisk 4.34.2 require?
macOS 10.13 High Sierra or any later release. If your machine is on Sierra or earlier, this build is not compatible.
How does the disk map work?
It scans a mounted volume and draws every file and folder as a segmented wheel, letting you click through layers to spot large items. Version 4.34 adds awareness of APFS clones, so it counts only the first occurrence of a clone in used space, giving a truer picture than previous releases.
Large files exposed: visual map and direct deletion
By showing size at a glance, the map makes large, forgotten files obvious. You can delete items directly from the interface or collect them for batch removal, all while the app recalculates remaining space in real time.
Gestures and shortcuts: the small things that speed things up
The interface rewards a light touch. Hovering over any segment of the map reveals its name and size in a tooltip, but holding Space while hovering invokes Quick Look for an immediate preview of the file — a photograph, a PDF, a video thumbnail — right there on the map. It is one of those details that, once discovered, becomes muscle memory.
A handful of other conveniences sit just below the surface:
- Right-click a segment to reveal the item in Finder without leaving the map. Useful when you want to move rather than delete.
- Drag any file or folder from the map onto the Trash icon in the Dock. The app recalculates the remaining space immediately, so the map shifts to reflect the deletion.
- Hold Option while clicking a breadcrumb in the path bar to reveal all parent folders as a pop‑up menu, avoiding repeated climbing through the hierarchy.
- Press Cmd-F to jump to the search field, which filters the map to segments matching a name or extension. The surrounding wedges dim, making the matches unmistakable.
- Scan multiple disks in parallel by opening separate windows — each scan runs independently, so you can examine an external drive while your main volume finishes.
How DaisyDisk sits among similar tools
Three other Mac disk analysers come up often in conversation: GrandPerspective, OmniDiskSweeper, and CleanMyMac. They each approach the same problem with a different sensibility.
GrandPerspective draws a treemap — a grid of nested rectangles — rather than a sunburst. It is open source, lightweight, and entirely static after a scan completes. The visual language is sparser; there is no Quick Look integration and no drag‑to‑delete. For a quick, free overview it works, but the absence of real‑time recalculation means you scan, act, and scan again to verify.
OmniDiskSweeper is a column‑view browser sorted by size. It feels closer to Finder, which some people find less disorienting than a radial map. It exposes every file, including system items, and offers little filtering. The trade‑off is clarity: a flat list of thousands of entries can bury the context that a visual map provides in a single glance.
CleanMyMac folds disk analysis into a broader maintenance suite. It scans, suggests junk files, and handles removal automatically. The interactive map is not its focus; you get recommendations rather than a full, navigable picture of your storage. For someone who wants to understand exactly what occupies their drive, rather than trust a set of automated categories, DaisyDisk remains the more transparent instrument.
Start gently: scan your home folder first
After installing, the temptation is to scan the main drive and start deleting. A gentler approach pays off later. On day one, try this sequence:
- Scan your home folder first, not the whole disk. The map loads faster, and you will learn the navigation gestures on a manageable dataset.
- Enable the “Show hidden space” option in the sidebar. This reveals space the system reports as used but not attributed to visible files — often snapshots, caches, or Spotlight indices that can be surprisingly large on APFS volumes.
- Bookmark two or three folders that tend to accumulate bulk:
~/Library/Caches,~/Downloads, and the iOS backup directory inside~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync. Dragging them into the sidebar saves a click later. - Resist deleting system files until you have watched the map recalibrate after a few ordinary removals. The APFS clone accounting in version 4.34 changes how certain duplicates are counted, and it is worth observing the numbers for a day or two before making aggressive cuts.
Worked example: clearing space before a large export
Imagine you need 80 GB free for a video render due tomorrow, and your 1 TB SSD reports only 42 GB available. The workflow runs like this:
Open DaisyDisk and scan the SSD. The map appears, dominated by a wedge labelled Users. Click into it, then into your home folder. A segment marked Movies bulges; inside it, a folder called Final Cut Archives sits at 57 GB. You hover, press Space, and Quick Look confirms these are old library backups you no longer need. Drag the folder to the Trash icon in the Dock. The map recoils, redraws, and now Music is the largest wedge.
You drill into Music and find a forgotten Logic folder holding 22 GB of sampler instruments you downloaded for a project two years ago. Right‑click, choose “Show in Finder,” and move the folder to an external drive instead of trashing it. DaisyDisk updates the map again: the used space on the SSD drops by another 22 GB. A final scan of the whole disk confirms 104 GB free — enough for the render, with a margin.
The entire sequence took under four minutes, most of it spent deciding what to keep. The map never required you to guess which folders were heavy; it simply pointed, and you acted.
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