User guide

Getting started

Download DiskGarden from the Download page, open the .dmg and drag the app to Applications. The first time you open it, macOS asks whether to open an app downloaded from the internet — choose Open.

DiskGarden opens on the Volumes page: every mounted disk, with a ring showing how full it is and how much space is free. A ring turns orange, then red, as a disk runs low.

Your first scan

1. Click a disk (or its Scan button). The ring fills as DiskGarden reads the disk.
2. When it's done, the map opens. Next time the button says View: DiskGarden remembers the result between launches and keeps it up to date as files change.
3. To map a single folder instead, click Scan a folder…, press ⌘ O, or drop the folder onto the window.

The ▾ next to a disk's button has more: rescan, scan as administrator, forget the saved result.

Reading the map

The map is a bloom of rings around a center disc. The disc shows how much space is used. The first ring holds the top-level folders, the next ring their contents, and so on outward. Each petal is as wide as the space it takes, so the biggest things are the widest petals.

• Colours group things that belong together: a folder's contents share its part of the colour wheel, getting lighter toward the edge. When you grow into a folder, its contents spread over the whole wheel again.
• Grey "smaller objects…" petals gather the files and folders too small to draw one by one.
• Purple "hidden space…" is space the disk reports as used that the scan couldn't reach: other users' files, protected system folders, snapshots and purgeable space. Scanning as administrator maps most of it.

Moving around

• Hover a petal to see its name, size and share of the disk; the list on the left highlights it too.
• Click a folder petal to grow into it. Click the center disc, use the path at the top, or press ⌘ ↑ to come back out.
• The list on the left shows the current folder's contents with their sizes. Below it, Free space and Free + purgeable show how much room the disk has.

Waste bin & safety

The Waste bin, at the bottom left of the map, is where you collect things to remove. Putting something in it deletes nothing.

1. Drop a petal or a row from the list onto the Waste bin, or hover it and press ⌘ ⌫.
2. Review. The Waste bin lists every item with its size and path. Right-click an item to show it in Finder or take it back out. Before dropping something in, press Space on the map to Quick Look it.
3. Empty when you're sure. By default the items move to the Trash, so you can still recover them there. If you turn off Emptying moves files to the Trash in Settings, they're deleted right away.

What can never go in the Waste bin

System locations — such as /System, /Library, /usr, /bin and the top level of your disk — are shown on the map so you can understand your disk, but DiskGarden won't let you put them in the Waste bin.

Scanning as administrator

Some of your disk is off limits to normal apps: other users' home folders, parts of the system and some caches. That's where the purple hidden space comes from.

• Choose Scan as Administrator from the ▾ menu next to a disk, or click the hidden space petal, and enter your Mac's password. DiskGarden scans again with administrator rights and maps what it couldn't see before.
• For the most complete map, also give DiskGarden Full Disk Access: open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access, and switch DiskGarden on. DiskGarden's own Settings has a Full Disk Access tab that tells you whether it's allowed.

Revoking access

Administrator rights last only for that one scan. To take back Full Disk Access, switch DiskGarden off (or remove it) in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access.

External drives & disk images

Anything your Mac mounts appears on the Volumes page automatically: USB and Thunderbolt drives, SD cards, disk images (.dmg), Time Machine disks and network shares (SMB, AFP, NFS, WebDAV). Plug in a drive and it appears; unplug it and it disappears.

• Star a folder you scanned (the ★ next to its name) to keep it on the Volumes page for next time.
• Network shares scan more slowly than local disks, since every folder is read over the network.
• Time Machine backups are full of hard links; DiskGarden counts each file once, so the map shows the space the backup really uses.

Keyboard shortcuts

⌘ O

Scan a folder

Space

Quick Look the hovered item

⌘ ↓

Grow into the hovered folder

⌘ ↑

Back out to the enclosing folder

⌘ [   ⌘ ]

Back and forward through the folders you've visited

⌘ ⌫

Put the hovered item in the Waste bin

⌘ E

Export the scan result to CSV

⌘ ,

Settings

Right-click any petal or row for the rest: Show in Finder, Open in Terminal, Preview.