What each option actually costs, which ones are genuinely free, and what you get for the money — checked against the vendors' own pages in September 2026.
The single most useful distinction when comparing these tools is that finding space and reclaiming it are different jobs. Almost every tool below will draw you a map of your disk. Far fewer will help you safely remove what the map reveals — with staged deletions you can undo, duplicate detection that verifies content rather than filenames, and an uninstaller that removes an app's support files rather than just its icon.
If you only want to see where the space went, the free tools are entirely sufficient. Paying buys the cleanup half.
| Tool | Price | Model | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| DaisyDisk | $9.99 direct, $12.99 CA App Store | One-time, lifetime license — no subscription | A polished visual sunburst view; you do the deleting |
| GrandPerspective | Free / $2.99 | Free download from SourceForge; $2.99 on the Mac App Store | A free treemap, open source |
| OmniDiskSweeper | Free | Free utility from The Omni Group | A ranked column list, Finder-like and fast to read |
| Nektony Disk Space Analyzer | Free / $19.99 US, $24.99 CA | Inspector is free; Pro is one-time or subscription | A sunburst view with a free tier to try |
| Massive Disk | Free / $20 per year | Scanning free forever; cleanup toolkit on Pro | Analysis plus safe, reversible cleanup in one app |
Prices verified in September 2026 against DaisyDisk's own homepage ("$9.99 One-time purchase / No recurring payments / Lifetime license") and GrandPerspective's ("free from Sourceforge or from the App Store for $2.99"), with App Store figures read from Apple's public lookup API (Nektony's Inspector is free and Pro is $19.99 US / $24.99 CA per that API). Note that App Store pricing varies by storefront: DaisyDisk is $9.99 in the US store but $12.99 in Canada, so check your own region before buying. Pricing changes — the vendor's page is always the authority. This list is not exhaustive; it covers the options whose current pricing we could confirm first-hand.
GrandPerspective is the strongest free choice if you want a treemap and don't mind an interface that looks like the open-source tool it is. It is genuinely free from SourceForge, actively maintained, and the $2.99 App Store copy exists mainly to cover distribution costs — the developer says you get the same app either way. For pure "where did my space go", it does the job.
OmniDiskSweeper takes a different approach: a ranked list of folders and files by size, closer to Finder in feel. It is quick to read and has no learning curve. The Omni Group lists it among their experiments rather than their flagship apps, so treat it as a utility rather than something that will grow new features.
Neither free tool includes cleanup actions. If duplicates, caches, or leftover app support files are your problem, they will show you nothing about it — that's not a flaw, it's simply outside what they do.
OnyX often comes up in these lists and it is worth being clear: it is a maintenance utility, not a disk-usage analyser. It verifies system file structures, runs cleaning and maintenance tasks, uninstalls applications, and exposes Finder/Dock/Safari settings — all of which is genuinely useful work, and it does none of it by drawing you a map of your disk. It is free and donation-supported (the developer's own site says the tools are made "so that all Mac users can use them freely"), with a separate build for each major macOS version, so make sure you download the one matching your system. If you want to reclaim space, it complements an analyser rather than replacing one.
DaisyDisk is the cheapest paid option and the most established — it has an Apple Editors' Choice history and a decade-plus track record. Its sunburst view is the most distinctive interface in the category. If you want one strong visualization and you're comfortable deciding what to delete yourself, it is good value and there is no subscription. It is $9.99 bought direct from the developer, or $12.99 in the Canadian App Store, so buy direct if you want the lower price.
The trade-off is scope: DaisyDisk is fundamentally an analyser. It shows you the disk; it does not offer staged rollback, duplicate verification, or app uninstallation.
Massive Disk is ours, so weigh this accordingly. It is a native Apple Silicon app for macOS 14 or later. Scanning and exploration are free forever — six visualisations plus an inspector — so if analysis is all you want, you never pay. Pro ($20/year) adds the cleanup half: staged Trash moves you can undo, Space Savers cleanup actions for known-safe regenerable data, duplicate detection that verifies size then partial then full SHA-256 before calling two files identical, an applications uninstaller, and snapshot comparison.
Two design decisions worth stating plainly, because they are deliberate:
It is also worth being honest about when not to buy it: if you want a free treemap and nothing more, GrandPerspective is excellent and costs nothing. If you want the cheapest one-time purchase and will handle deletion yourself, DaisyDisk is $9.99 direct from the developer and we are a subscription. The case for Massive Disk is the cleanup half — and the free tier means you can evaluate the scanning before deciding.
| If you want… | Choose |
|---|---|
| Free, and only want to see usage | GrandPerspective or OmniDiskSweeper |
| Cheapest one-time purchase, polished visuals | DaisyDisk ($9.99) |
| Open source specifically | GrandPerspective |
| Free tier to evaluate before paying | Nektony Inspector (free), or Massive Disk (free scan) |
| Analysis and safe cleanup in one place | Massive Disk (free scan, Pro cleanup) |
| No subscription on principle | Any of the three above — all are one-time or free |
Yes — GrandPerspective is free from SourceForge and OmniDiskSweeper is a free utility from The Omni Group. Both show where space has gone; neither includes cleanup actions such as duplicate detection or an uninstaller.
At $9.99 one-time direct (or $12.99 via the Canadian App Store) with no subscription, it is the cheapest paid option here and has a long track record. Whether it suits you depends on whether a visual sunburst view is what you want and whether you are happy to handle deletion yourself.
No. macOS shows a category breakdown, Finder sorts by size, and Terminal's du walks the tree. Free analysers add a visual map. What paid tools generally add is the cleanup — safe staged deletion, duplicate verification, and app removal.
They were checked against each vendor's own website in September 2026. Pricing changes; the vendor's page is always the authority.
Massive Disk maps every byte of your storage across six visualizations — then gives you safe, reversible ways to get space back. Scanning is free forever; cleanup tools are Pro.