DaisyDisk 2.0.6 review

A useful, well-designed disk utility for your Mac

DaisyDisk 2.0.6
DaisyDisk's interface is simple, attractive and highly effective at helping you find big files

TechRadar Verdict

Pros

  • +

    Incredibly pretty to look at

  • +

    Find space-eating files easily

Cons

  • -

    Visual view of connected disks

  • -

    A bit of a one-trick pony

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Once upon a time, drive space was a very precious commodity. Now, though, even entry-level Macs come with 500GB or more, and if you buy a decent iMac you'll get the kind of storage that was the realm of supercomputers not so long ago.

So does the average Mac user really need a piece of software designed to help free up additional space? The answer, we think, is 'yes' – and DaisyDisk does it brilliantly.

DaisyDisk visually represents your hard drive as a concentric graph. This makes it really easy to drill down and find big files; once found, you drag them to the button at the bottom of the interface to collect the files, ready to be deleted.

DaisyDisk gives you a running tally of how much space you will save once you hit Delete. Click on a block in the 'daisy' and you can drill down as deep as you want, with a list of the files, folders and their sizes on the level you're looking at over to the right of the window.

On our test Mac, we were able to find about 40GB of Final Cut Express rendering files that we hadn't touched for two years, and deleted them. That's close to 10% of the usable space on the hard drive, saved in seconds; we're willing to bet that virtually every Mac user has something similar waiting to be reclaimed on their drive.

What makes DaisyDisk great to use, though, is how enticing the interface is. It positively encourages you to explore around your drive, and makes this simple part of maintaining your Mac a genuine pleasure.

Follow TechRadar Reviews on Twitter: http://twitter.com/techradarreview

Ian Betteridge

Ian has been writing about technology for more than 20 years, which is long enough for his original focus – Apple – to have gone from “five days from bankruptcy” to “biggest company in the world”. Since then he’s managed magazines, websites, apps, YouTube channels, Facebook pages and pretty much every other kind of medium there is. He’s interested in mobile technology, from laptops to phones via tablets and smartwatches, along with the cloud and startups. 

Latest in Software & Services
woman listening to computer
AWS vs Azure: choosing the right platform to maximize your company's investment
Autonomous finance
Quickbooks vs Quicken: what are the main strengths and weaknesses for your business
finance
Quickbooks vs Xero: which is the best for your business?
Group of people meeting
Zoom vs Google Meet: which is the best video conferencing tool for your business?
Fingers typing on a computer keyboard.
Microsoft 365 Personal vs Microsoft 365 Family: are there any real differences?
Person at laptop
Windows 11 vs Windows 365: which is the best choice for businesses?
Latest in Reviews
WWE 2K25
I've spent days in the ring with WWE 2K25, and it's like a five-star match ruined by the Million Dollar Man
Curaprox Hydrosonic Pro electric toothbrush
Curaprox Hydrosonic Pro review: A powerful seven-mode, Swiss-made sonic brush
Atelier Yumia
I was already sold on Atelier Yumia as an RPG, but I wasn’t expecting it to have my favorite crafting system in all of gaming
Alienware 27 AW2725Q monitor on desk displaying a scene from Cyberpunk 2077
I played games with Alienware's new 27-inch 4K OLED monitor and now I don't want to see another LCD panel
PLAUD NOTE
I tested this AI voice recorder, and now I'll never take meeting notes manually again
MacBook Air 15-inch with M4 chip on a creative's desk with screen open
I've reviewed the Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4) - and it remains the best 15-inch laptop I'd recommend for most people