Why I built MacWrench
I got tired of juggling App Store updates, Homebrew commands, and CleanMyMac just to keep my Mac tidy. So I built something that does all three.
Too many apps, too many update workflows
I have about 30 apps installed on my Mac. Some came from the App Store — things like Xcode, Bear, and Pixelmator Pro. Others are direct downloads: Brave, VS Code, Docker Desktop, Telegram, Figma. And then there's a handful I installed through Homebrew because it was easier at the time, or because there was no other way.
That means three completely different update workflows. The App Store handles its own updates, but it's slow and sometimes holds them back for days. Direct-download apps mostly use Sparkle feeds — you get those random "an update is available" popups, each app on its own schedule, each with its own update dialog. And Homebrew? That's brew update && brew upgrade in the terminal, hoping nothing breaks along the way.
Then there's cleaning. Caches pile up. Old containers leave junk behind. Uninstalled apps leave preference files scattered across ~/Library. Dealing with that meant yet another app.
What already exists (and what it doesn't do)
I tried everything. CleanMyMac is probably the best cleaning tool on macOS — it's thorough, it looks great, and it does a good job finding stuff you forgot about. But it has no idea what Homebrew is. It can't tell you which formulae are outdated or help you upgrade a cask.
Cork and Taphouse are beautiful Homebrew frontends. If all you need is a GUI for brew, they're solid. But they don't touch your regular apps, and they don't clean anything.
Pearcleaner does one thing well — uninstalling apps cleanly, catching all the leftover files — but that's it. No updates, no Homebrew, no cache cleaning.
So I kept bouncing between three or four tools. App Store for some updates, checking Sparkle popups for others, terminal for Homebrew, CleanMyMac for cleanup. It was annoying. Not broken, exactly, but way more friction than it needed to be.
One app that actually does all three
The idea behind MacWrench is pretty straightforward: what if one app scanned /Applications, parsed Sparkle feeds, checked the App Store via the mas CLI, ran Homebrew commands, AND cleaned caches and orphaned files? All in one window, with a clear UI that shows you what's happening.
I built it with Swift 6 and SwiftUI, using The Composable Architecture (TCA) to keep the state management sane. It requires macOS 14 or later — I didn't want to spend months working around older API limitations.
The app has three tabs. The first shows all your apps, where each one came from, and whether an update is available. You can update individually or in batch. The second tab is a full Homebrew manager — formulae, casks, outdated packages, pin/unpin, batch upgrades. The third tab is the cleaner: 21 cleanup categories across 7 groups, with a safety score for each item so you can see what's safe to remove and what you should think twice about.
Where things stand (honestly)
The Apps and Homebrew tabs are solid. I use them daily and they do what they're supposed to. The cleaner is still in beta. I'm not going to pretend it's perfect — there are edge cases I'm still finding, and the scanning could be faster. But it works, and the safety scoring helps prevent you from deleting something you'll regret.
MacWrench isn't on the App Store. The app needs to run shell commands (brew, mas, file system scans), and sandboxing would break most of that. It's a direct download — a DMG, the way Mac apps used to ship.
The free tier lets you browse everything — see your apps, see your Homebrew packages, see what the cleaner finds. Pro unlocks the actual actions: updating, batch operations, cleaning, uninstalling. Monthly is €1.99, yearly is €15.99. No lifetime license yet, but I'm thinking about it.
What's coming next
I have a short roadmap: menu bar quick-actions so you can check for updates without opening the full app, a large file finder to help reclaim disk space, and a privacy cleaner for browser caches and tracking data. You can follow progress in the changelog.
Try it
If you care about keeping your Mac tidy and you're tired of juggling multiple tools, give MacWrench a shot. The free tier doesn't expire — you can poke around as long as you want before deciding if Pro is worth it.