In short
- Safe to remove: rebuilt automatically when needed (caches, build files…). Review first: may hold something you care about — look inside before removing it.
- Your data: your own files, such as photo libraries or virtual machines. MoreRoom shows them but never moves them to the Trash.
- Labels come from about 250 rules that recognise well-known folders and files. They update on their own, signed by MoreRoom.
The three labels
MoreRoom recognises well-known space consumers — Xcode simulators, npm caches, local AI models, Final Cut render files, app leftovers and many more — and gives each one a label, with a short explanation in plain language.
| Label | Means | What MoreRoom lets you do |
|---|---|---|
| Safe to remove | Rebuilt automatically when it’s needed again: caches, build products, downloaded installers… Removing it costs at most a little time later. | Move it to the Trash (or have its tool remove it), alone or with Add All Safe Items (Pro). |
| Review first | Might hold something you care about: simulators with test data, other Xcode versions, language toolchains, downloaded models, games. | Look inside (Reveal in Finder, Quick Look), then remove it if you don’t need it. Never added by Add All Safe Items. |
| Your data | Your own files: Photos and Final Cut Pro libraries, virtual machines, Mail and Messages data, very large videos… | Nothing: MoreRoom shows how big it is, but the Move to Trash button is disabled. |
Items with no label are simply files and folders MoreRoom doesn’t specifically know. You can still remove them yourself, one at a time — they go to the Trash, with Undo.
Where you see them
- In Free Up Space and the Smart Views, next to each group of items.
- In the inspector, under the item’s size, with the explanation.
- In the List view, in the last column.
- In the Collector’s review sheet, as a coloured dot next to each item.
“It comes back”
The explanation often says whether an item comes back. A cache that comes back isn’t a reason to keep it — it means removing it is harmless, but the space will be used again over time. Storage Weather shows which folders grow back fastest.
Items removed by their own tool
Some items are best removed by the tool that created them — for example iOS simulators (xcrun simctl), Homebrew downloads (brew cleanup), npm’s cache or Docker data. For those, the inspector’s button reads Remove with the tool’s name, and MoreRoom runs the tool’s official command instead of moving files around.
Commands are taken from a fixed list built into the app. Some of them delete for good: they’re marked Permanent in the review sheet, and they can’t be undone from MoreRoom. See Remove items safely.
Items you can’t remove from MoreRoom
A few items show their label but no working Move to Trash button. Hover over the button to see why:
- Your data — offloading it to an external drive is coming in a future version;
- an item that must be removed from its own app (the Logic Pro sound library from Logic, games from Steam, models from LM Studio…), with a hint telling you where;
- space that macOS manages itself, such as the swap file and sleep image, the Spotlight index or a downloaded macOS update.
Where the rules come from
The rules are written and checked by the MoreRoom team. A copy ships inside the app, and MoreRoom checks once a day for a newer version, which must be signed by MoreRoom to be accepted. A rule update can add or change rules and their explanations; it can never make MoreRoom run something new. See Privacy and security.
Want to know about a specific folder? Our “Is it safe to delete?” directory explains each one.