Finding Large Files and Duplicate Files on Your Developer Mac
Last updated: 2026-04-06
Beyond caches and build artifacts, developers often accumulate large files — disk images, database dumps, video recordings, old archives, and VM snapshots — that are forgotten in project directories or Downloads. Duplicate files waste additional space when the same file exists in multiple locations. CodeCleaner includes two tools specifically for this: Large File Finder and Duplicate File Detector.
Large File Finder
CodeCleaner's Large File Finder scans your accessible directories for files above a configurable threshold (default 100 MB) while smartly skipping dependency and build trees to avoid noise. It finds forgotten .dmg disk images, .sql database dumps, .iso files, video recordings, and old .zip/.tar.gz archives that are common in developer workflows.
Duplicate File Detector
The Duplicate File Detector uses CryptoKit hashing to find identical files larger than 1 MB. It employs partial hashing for efficiency — reading only the first and last portions of large files for a quick comparison, then doing a full hash only when the partial hashes match. Extensive skip lists automatically ignore node_modules, build outputs, caches, and .git directories to avoid false positives from dependency trees.
How duplicates waste space
Common duplicate scenarios for developers: copied project directories with identical node_modules contents, backup copies of large files in different folders, downloaded assets that were also committed to a repository, and multiple copies of the same .dmg or .zip installer. CodeCleaner groups duplicates by content hash and calculates the wasted space per group.
Manual steps (Terminal)
You can do this manually with these commands, or use CodeCleaner to automate the process with a visual interface and safety checks.
find ~ -size +100M -type f 2>/dev/null | head -20du -sh ~/Downloads/* | sort -hr | head -20# No simple terminal command for duplicate detection — use CodeCleanerOr use CodeCleaner
CodeCleaner automates all of this with a native macOS app. It auto-detects your installed tools, scans the relevant paths in parallel, shows per-item sizes, and lets you clean safely with one click. Free scan, no account required.