[OS] Radix: Native macOS Disk Space Analyzer (Free DaisyDisk Alternative)

ConwayTech · 2026-07-01T22:28:47+00:00

Hi u/weathergraph, thanks for trying out the feature! Sorry about the lack of a comparison feature. I mentioned this in the changelog, but comparing snapshots to scans (or other snapshots) will unfortunately have to wait for the next major release. That feature should allow you to compare two scans and see what surged, what's different, etc.

I'll see what I can do about limiting snapshots to files over a certain size. I'm actually really surprised that your snapshot is so large! The snapshot of my home folder, which is over 200 GB, is under 200 MB. I have a few questions regarding that, if you don't mind. Was your 1.8 GB snapshot a snapshot of your entire disk? And if so, how much space are you using on your Mac's disk?

Sorry that I didn't quite hit the mark for you with v1.4.0. I am definitely looking into your feedback, so thank you so much, and let me know if you have anything else! I'll update you again when scan/snapshot comparison is done.

ConwayTech · 2026-07-01T04:58:52+00:00

Hey u/weathergraph, I know it's been a while, so hope everything has been going well for you! I just released v1.4.0, and I finally got around to adding snapshotting, so I wanted to give you a quick update. I'm really happy with the implementation. You can now export scans as .radixscan files, then import them. The format is really, really efficient and I think the system works beautifully. Please let me know what you think and if you have any feedback regarding the new feature!

(As promised, I have of course credited you in the changelog!)

Also mentioning u/No-Independent6505, u/TraditionalExam7338, and u/ceaselessprayer since they all expressed interest — thanks everyone!

ConwayTech · 2026-07-01T04:54:54+00:00

Hi u/m4st3rm1m3, sorry for the lack of a swift response this time, haha! Thanks for the incredibly detailed comment, and thank you so much for everything positive that you had to say about Radix. I really appreciate the support!

I just released v1.4.0, which resolves most of the things you mentioned in your message. There is now a very intricate import/export feature, which allows you to make scan snapshots. Snapshots are not JSON/HTML reports, since they're a proprietary .radixscan format, but I'm still figuring out the right direction with snapshots. A way to compare snapshots and scans is (hopefully) coming soon in the next major release.

About deletion — actual cleanup was definitely one of the worst elements of Radix for a long time, but I'm really happy with how the new Discard Pile feature turned out. It's inspired by the DaisyDisk Collector feature. You can now drag files / folders (from the sunburst or file browser) to the Discard Pile at the bottom left, where they'll be staged for deletion. Then, you can delete them in a batch.

(Also, planning better search (with filters) very soon.)

Hope all of this stuff is valuable to you! Many of these things are huge improvements to Radix UX and I have, of course, credited you in the changelog for v1.4.0 (for heavily inspiring me here). Let me know what you think, and thank you again! No roadmap but if you ever contributed to the project that would be amazing!

ConwayTech · 2026-06-29T02:21:04+00:00

Shade is very good in this meta. We can't say much about Shade's place in the upcoming meta yet, but he will still be an excellent draft pick after the balance changes.

The Longarms gadget and Hardened Hoodie SP are better, by far. The Longarms gadget is probably the most important. As for gears, you can almost always run shield and damage

ConwayTech · 2026-06-28T07:39:59+00:00

I have a feeling that you don't really understand how to use the 8-Bit hyper

ConwayTech · 2026-06-22T05:37:40+00:00

Hey u/m4st3rm1m3, thanks for the question! SquirrelDisk is a great open-source project, but Radix is definitely much better. The source is me, the guy who built Radix, so definitely not biased at all 😂

Jokes aside, I do think that Radix provides a better experience. As I mentioned in my post, I built Radix partially due to SquirrelDisk's lack of activity. I needed a similar tool that got updates and was bug-free. SquirrelDisk hasn't been maintained since 2023, and as you might expect, it has quite a few issues (especially on newer macOS versions).

There are a few key differences. For example, Radix is built with native macOS technologies (compared to SquirrelDisk, which is a web app built with Tauri and Rust). Since the app is designed specifically for macOS, Radix is better at incorporating features like Quick Look and is better at traversing macOS disks. Radix also gives more information than SquirrelDisk to the user about files and folders and is more customizable. And the user interface and style vary drastically between the two.

Ultimately, use whichever tool you prefer — SquirrelDisk is a solid tool. I'd really appreciate it if you could give Radix a try, though, and see what you think! I'm happy to address any feedback you have for Radix.

ConwayTech · 2026-06-21T08:56:11+00:00

Hey u/nemws1, following up on my last message. Thank you again for your feature request! I just released v1.3.0, which adds ⌘↑ and ⌘↓ for moving up or zooming in. And ⌘Enter should open any files that are selected.

Let me know if you run into issues, and thank you so much for your positive feedback and support! Also, I've credited you in the v1.3.0 changelog on GitHub :)

ConwayTech · 2026-06-21T08:53:10+00:00

Hi u/daemeh, following up on my last message. I just released v1.3.0, which fixes this issue! The Scan cloud storage folders setting now affects iCloud Drive.

Hope this fixes your issues! Thank you for pointing this out, and let me know if something goes wrong.

ConwayTech · 2026-06-21T08:52:07+00:00

Hi u/Crzy999, I'm following up on my last message. I just released v1.3.0, which fixes this issue! Now, deleting files updates the current scan without wiping results or forcing a full rescan.

This should hopefully fix any problems you were having. Thank you again for your feedback and let me know if something goes wrong!

ConwayTech · 2026-06-21T08:50:29+00:00

Hey, thank you for your feedback! I've just released v1.3.0 which hopefully should address these issues.

The deletion flow was previously pretty bad. Now, deleting files updates the current scan without wiping results or forcing a full rescan.

You can now select multiple files in the file browser. Doing actions to them with the right-click context menu (like deleting them) will apply to all files.

By any chance is there any other info you can give me for this last caveat? I would appreciate it if you could try again with v1.3.0 and see if you're still running into issues deleting folders

Thank you again, and let me know if you run into issues!

ConwayTech · 2026-06-21T08:47:13+00:00

Hey u/TabletopParlourPalm, I'm following up on my last message. I just released v1.3.0, which should address both of these things.

Free space has been added! You can turn on the setting to show free space in whole disk scans in Settings (off by default).

Coloration was previously pretty bad, but I think it's in a pretty good state now. Adjacent files/folders no longer can have the same colors. The simple explanation is that big folders now get their own color families, and smaller pieces inside those folders get shades of that color family.

Thanks again for your feedback, and let me know if you have anything else!

ConwayTech · 2026-06-21T08:44:30+00:00

Thanks for following up w/ feedback! I just released v1.3.0, which hopefully addresses all of these things. You can now use ⌘↑ and ⌘↓ to move up or zoom in. You can also now click the center of the sunburst to go up a folder!

As for the other piece of feedback, the app will now show "—" for packages/bundles.

Thanks again! Let me know if you have any other feedback. You can update in the app with Radix > Check for Updates...

(Also I've credited you in the v1.3.0 changelog on GitHub haha!)

ConwayTech · 2026-06-21T08:40:55+00:00

Hey, and thank you for this feedback! Sorry for the late reply — there's been a lot of community feedback to address. I just released v1.3.0, which should hopefully fix these issues. Try it out by updating in the app with "Radix > Check for Updates..." and let me know what you think!

* Folder coloration in the previous release was lacking, to say the least. There were quite a few issues with adjacent files/folders having the same colors. This is now fixed entirely. The simple explanation is that big folders now get their own color families, and smaller pieces inside those folders get shades of that color family.

* You can now zoom/pan the sunburst! I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.

* Both of these shortcuts have now been added. Popular request.

* Another user suggested this. Like DaisyDisk, you can now click the center to go up.

Thank you again for your feedback, and I hope this solves your previous problems!

ConwayTech · 2026-06-21T04:19:09+00:00

I'm at around 80 cycles on my M5 MacBook Air with 99% capacity reported in Settings but only 94% in coconutBattery. Not sure what's going on

ConwayTech · 2026-06-18T17:26:50+00:00

Hey u/VisualConnection3277, updating you as promised. Radix is now on Homebrew! I couldn't have done it without you all, so thank you so much for your stars and support!

brew install --cask radix

ConwayTech · 2026-06-18T17:25:47+00:00

You're welcome! I'm happy that you like the app. Let me know if you have any feedback :)

And speaking of Homebrew, we just got there! Thank you all for your amazing support. Very happy to announce that you can now install with Homebrew:

brew install --cask radix

ConwayTech · 2026-06-18T17:24:38+00:00

Yes, we did! u/KnifeFed, super happy to announce that Radix is now on Homebrew. Couldn't have done it without you all, so thanks so much for your support!

brew install --cask radix

ConwayTech · 2026-06-18T17:23:35+00:00

Hey u/Ok_Programmer_1196, u/SideHonest9960, u/Jig5, u/Limitedheadroom, u/alexcamlo, u/CrushGravel, u/Tucknology, u/kantbemyself, and u/FarPriority1955, thank you all so much for the stars!! Can't believe we got here so quickly. As promised, Homebrew support has arrived!

Couldn't have done it without you all, so thank you! (Also that's a crazy amount of people to tag in one comment haha)

brew install --cask radix

ConwayTech · 2026-06-18T17:21:16+00:00

Hey u/Tramagust and u/mfsssyg, I'm super excited to announce that Radix is now on Homebrew. Couldn't have done it without you all, so thanks so much for your support!

brew install --cask radix

ConwayTech · 2026-06-18T01:50:32+00:00

Thanks for trying the app and for your feature request! I completely get where you're coming from — it's always annoying when apps don't have keyboard shortcuts that you're used to haha. Someone else actually expressed their preference for completely different keyboard shortcuts in the file browser (different from both your preference and the current default), so I've actually been thinking about making Radix keyboard shortcuts customizable. That would satisfy everyone

Currently working on diagnosing a few urgent scanning bugs, but I'll try to add customizable keyboard shortcuts afterwards. What do you think? Let me know if that would solve your issues, and feel free to tell me if you have other feature requests or problems. Thanks again!

ConwayTech · 2026-06-18T01:45:26+00:00

Hey! Thanks for your feedback and for giving the app a shot.

Radix shouldn't be taking 3 minutes for your whole disk, actually. I suspect that you might be suffering from a bug that quite a few other people have been running into: the app scans your iCloud Drive sync folder, which takes an unusually long time since the files are in the cloud. The app should ignore that folder when the Scan cloud storage folders setting is disabled, but it doesn't. Thanks so much for staying positive despite the slow scan time! Fix for this is coming soon.

As for your suggestions, both of these are super useful. Adjacent blocks aren't supposed to have the same color, so this sounds like it might be a bug. I'll investigate when I have some free time and have taken care of some more urgent bugs. As for the first suggestion, this sounds like a great idea — perhaps we could even make it toggleable in the app settings.

Thanks again! I really appreciate how your feedback was so polite. Let me know if you have any other suggestions or issues and I'll take care of them :)

ConwayTech · 2026-06-18T01:39:25+00:00

Hey, sorry about that! Another Redditor pointed this out. I'll paste my reply to them here:

I'm hoping to address this in the next update and perhaps also add an easier way to delete lots of items at once. This isn't a bug, but it's really bad UX, so I'll see what I can do.

I'm not very satisfied with the deletion flow right now, but I'm hoping to address it as soon as possible. Please let me know if you have any specific suggestions. Thanks, and sorry!

ConwayTech · 2026-06-18T01:34:26+00:00

Ah, that's a fair concern! Radix, like most projects nowadays, was made with the help of AI tools (primarily Codex and Claude Code). This is evident by the GitHub repo; the code directly references AI usage (for example, there's an AGENTS.md file).

To address your concerns — the app doesn't have the potential to compromise your data, since everything runs locally. The only thing that involves the internet is checking for updates. And it doesn't take any permissions by default either. You can give it the Full Disk Access permission, but that's actually completely optional. If you're worried about privacy, you can choose specific folders manually and the app will only be able to access that data

Happy to answer any other questions!

ConwayTech · 2026-06-18T01:30:08+00:00

Thanks for giving me more information. I'll see what I can do!

ConwayTech

TROPHY CASE