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Apps from the Mac App Store can’t see your files until you allow it. On first launch click Grant Access to Macintosh HD… and, in the window that opens, click Grant Access without selecting anything else — it already points at your disk. You can also drag your disk from Finder and drop it on the Anillo window.

You only do this once; Anillo remembers.

Anillo needs the startup disk itself (usually called “Macintosh HD”), not a folder inside it. In the open window, choose your disk in the sidebar or press ⇧⌘C and select it, then click Grant Access.

Yes. Click the Anillo icon in the menu bar at the top of your screen and choose Show Welcome Tour, or use Help → Welcome Tour in the menu.

It’s optional. macOS keeps some data — Mail, Messages, Safari, other apps’ private data — hidden from every app, even after you grant the disk. Without it that space is reported as “hidden”.

To include it: open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access, turn on Anillo, then scan again. Anillo still only reads names and sizes.

Space that is in use but that no readable file accounts for: local Time Machine snapshots, purgeable caches that macOS frees on its own, and folders Anillo isn’t allowed to read (see Full Disk Access above).

Finder adds up file sizes. Anillo measures the space actually used on disk: files duplicated in Finder (APFS clones) share their blocks and are counted once, hard links are counted once, compressed and sparse files count at their real size, and cloud files that aren’t downloaded count as the little they occupy. Anillo’s figure is what deleting would really give you back.

To stay fast and light, Anillo sums up files under 1 MB per folder instead of tracking each one. Click the “Smaller files” row to list them. You can change the cut-off in Settings → Scanning.

Drag items onto the Basket at the bottom of the window, or right-click and choose Add to Basket. They disappear from the chart and the Basket shows how much you would free. Nothing is touched on disk until you press Delete and confirm. Put Back returns everything.

A few possible reasons: you chose Move to Trash (the space returns when you empty the Trash); a local Time Machine snapshot still references the data (macOS releases it within about a day); or the files shared blocks with copies you kept. Press Rescan for a fresh picture.

Folders macOS depends on — System, Library, Applications, your home folder itself and a few others — are protected inside Anillo on purpose. You can still open them and remove individual items inside your own folders.

There are two cases. If the message mentions an administrator password, the item belongs to the system: App Store apps can’t ask for that password, so use Reveal in Finder and delete it there.

Otherwise macOS handed Anillo your disk without permission to change it. Click Grant Access Again… in the message (or on the start screen) and confirm your disk in the window that opens. If it still fails, quit Anillo from the menu bar icon and open it again.

Only if you chose Move to Trash: open the Trash in Finder and use Put Back. Delete Permanently cannot be undone.

In the Monitors tab choose Add Folder…, pick a folder and a size limit. Anillo measures it on a schedule (5 to 60 minutes, in Settings) and sends a notification the first time it crosses the limit. It alerts again only after the folder has dropped back under the limit.

Check System Settings → Notifications → Anillo and allow notifications, and check that a Focus mode isn’t silencing them. Monitors only run while Anillo is open — closing the window is fine, it keeps watching from the menu bar. Turn on Settings → Open Anillo at login to keep it running.

The folder was deleted or moved to another disk. Remove the monitor from its ••• menu and add the folder again.

Any Mac running macOS 15 or later, Apple silicon or Intel. Anillo analyzes the internal startup disk.

Quit Anillo from its menu bar icon, then move it to the Trash from the Applications folder. To also remove its settings and monitor history, delete the folder ~/Library/Containers/com.itaysoft.borrado.