A Finder alternative with a file history
Sleuth lines up every file by the day it landed and the site or app it came from. Search it in plain words, and clear out what you don’t need.
Free to use. Pro free for 3 days, then pay once. First 10 licenses free
Sleuth vs Finder
Finder is a fine file browser. Here is what Sleuth adds, and Show in Finder is always one click away.
Finder: Recents, one long list sorted by date
Sleuth: Home and a Timeline grouped into days and short sessions, with where each file came from
Finder: A search field; filters are added by hand
Sleuth: “pdfs from last week over 5 mb” becomes filters you can see and remove
Finder: Depends on what Spotlight has indexed
Sleuth: Reads the text in images and scanned PDFs on your Mac, with Copy Text
Finder: Get Info, one file at a time
Sleuth: Sources groups downloads by site: Gmail, Slack, ChatGPT, AirDrop and more
Finder: No built-in duplicate finder
Sleuth: Exact copies and similar photos, with a sensible copy kept
Finder: No guided clean-up
Sleuth: Clean Up cards for old downloads, installers, big old videos and more, all to the Trash
Finder: Hidden folders you have to find yourself
Sleuth: Xcode, Gradle, Android, Node, Flutter and more, with sizes, in one place
Finder: Put Back from the Trash
Sleuth: Put back a whole clean-up in one click
Finder is a trademark of Apple Inc. Sleuth is not affiliated with Apple.
Timeline
Every file that lands on your Mac takes its place on the Timeline, grouped into days and short sessions like “6 screenshots” or “3 images · Figma”. Day recap answers “what was I doing on Tuesday?”
Day recap Command D
Sources
Every download remembers the site or app it came from: Gmail, ChatGPT, Figma, WhatsApp, GitHub, Zoom, AirDrop. The file a client sent last week is one click away, not one scroll through Downloads.
Open Sources Shift Command J
The Info panel shows it for every single file, too.
Search
Type what you remember, like “photos from my iPhone in August”, and Sleuth shows what it understood as filters you can change. Try it: this runs Sleuth’s own search rules on made-up files, right in your browser.
Search anywhere in Sleuth Command K
Live demo: type anything
IMG_2150.HEIC 3.6 MB · Pictures Aug 28 
IMG_2133.HEIC 3.3 MB · Pictures Aug 26 
IMG_2110.HEIC 2.9 MB · Pictures Aug 24 
IMG_2102.HEIC 3.4 MB · Pictures Aug 22 
IMG_2045.HEIC 2.8 MB · Pictures Aug 15 
IMG_2041.HEIC 3.1 MB · Pictures Aug 14 No sample files match that. Try one of the examples below.
The same search in a small panel, wherever you are. It opens apps and does quick sums too.
Find a screenshot by a word on it, then copy the text out of one file or many.
Clean Up
Forgotten downloads, old installers, copies and caches: Sleuth finds them, sizes each pile and shows you what’s inside. Nothing moves until you say so.
Open Clean Up Shift Command K
From the sample Mac in these screenshots
Free up 15.14 GB
A file counts once in the total, even when it sits in two piles.
Exact copies, and look-alike photos too: bursts, edits, resized copies. Sleuth picks the copy to keep, you can overrule it, and iCloud-only files are left alone.
Xcode, Gradle, Android, Flutter, CocoaPods and Node caches in one list, each with what it is before you clear it.
Storage breaks it down by category, all the way to the file.
Everything else
Preview, size, dimensions, camera, where it came from, and Copy Path.
Preview anything, then step through with the arrow keys.
Big thumbnails or a tidy list, with folder sizes in both.
Play songs right in the window, track after track.
Drag one file or many into any app.
Open With, Copy Path, Quick Actions, Rename and more.
Convert, resize and compress pictures, and remove location data.
Merge, split and compress PDFs, and turn pictures into PDFs and back.
Convert to MP4 or MOV, compress, and pull out the sound.
Rename many files at once with a live preview.
Invoices and receipts, IDs and travel, wallpapers, installers and more, gathered for you.
Off until you want it: old installers to the Trash, screenshots filed by month.
Your latest downloads, one click away.
Find Files, Get Latest Download, Get Files From Day and Convert Image.
Optional: “Show in Finder” in other apps opens Sleuth.
Show them when you need them, hide them when you don’t.
Signed updates download in the background and install when you quit.
Privacy and specs
No account, no analytics, no uploads. Here is what runs where, and the few things Sleuth sends over the network.
Pricing
One-time $12₹599 for 1 Mac. No subscription. Sleuth is free to use, and every Pro feature is free for 3 days first.
The first 10 licenses are free.10 of 10 left
Choose 1 Mac, then type FIRST10 in
the discount field at checkout. The price drops to $0₹0, and
your license key arrives by email like any other. One per person.
Price for 1 Mac, by launch stage
Launch Now
Launch price · first 100 licenses
$12 ₹599
Early
Next 400 licenses
$19 ₹799
Regular
After that
$24 ₹999
$12$18$24₹599₹899₹1,199
One-time · 1 Mac3 Macs5 Macs · Launch price
Secure checkout by Dodo Payments, our merchant of record.
The trial unlocks every feature. Afterwards, Sleuth stays useful for free, and Pro unlocks the power tools.
Put back and Undo are never locked.
FAQ
Another question?
support@getsleuth.app
It can be the app you browse files in every day. Finder keeps running, because macOS uses it for the desktop and the Trash. If you like, turn on Settings ▸ General ▸ “Make Sleuth the default file browser”, and “Show in Finder” in most other apps opens Sleuth instead. It is off until you turn it on.
No. Sleuth indexes and searches your files on your Mac, and reads text in images with Apple’s on-device Vision framework. There is no account and no cloud. Files that live only in iCloud are never downloaded.
Files you remove in Sleuth go to the Trash, and Undo or Put back brings them back, even a whole clean-up at once. Nothing moves until you choose. The one exception is Developer clean-up: it runs each tool’s own clean command (like “brew cleanup”) only after you confirm, and those tools delete their caches themselves.
macOS asks you before any app can read your Desktop, Documents or Downloads. You pick the folders. Full Disk Access is optional; it lets Sleuth see your whole Mac, such as Mail and other users, in Storage.
The 3-day trial unlocks everything. After it, Sleuth keeps working for free, and the Pro features show a small lock until you buy. Pricing lists what is in each.
Buy a license for 1 Mac and type FIRST10 in the discount field at checkout: the price drops to zero, and your license key arrives by email like any other. The code works 10 times in total, once per person. When the counter in Pricing reaches zero, the offer is over.
No. You pay once and keep it.
Yes. Choose a 3-Mac or 5-Mac license when you buy. Each Mac you activate uses one seat.
Yes. On the old Mac, choose Settings ▸ License ▸ Deactivate this Mac, then activate the key on the new one.
Yes. Sleuth checks your license at launch about once a week. If you are offline, nothing turns off, and it simply checks again later.
Sleuth checks for updates once a day, downloads them in the background and installs them when you quit. Updates are signed, and you can turn either step off in Settings ▸ Updates.
Yes. If Sleuth isn’t right for you, email us within 14 days of buying and we refund you in full, no questions asked.
Email support@getsleuth.app.
Free to use · Pro free for 3 days · 14-day refund · No account
