Scanning Your Mac

How Scanning Works

Disk Doctor Pro automatically begins scanning your hard drive as soon as you launch the app. It examines multiple areas of your system and organizes the results into categories so you can see exactly what is taking up space.

The scanning process can take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes depending on your drive size and type. Spinning icons next to each category indicate that the scan is still in progress.

Scan Categories

Disk Doctor Pro scans the following areas of your Mac:

• Application Caches -- Temporary data stored by apps that can safely be removed.
• Application Logs -- Log files generated by apps over time.
• Browser Data -- Caches, cookies, and history from web browsers.
• Mail Downloads -- Attachments and files downloaded through the Mail app.
• Trash -- Files sitting in your Trash that have not been permanently deleted.
• Downloads -- Files in your Downloads folder.
• Developer Files -- Build artifacts, derived data, and other files from development tools.

Tip: To scan all categories completely, make sure you have granted Full Disk Access. See our Full Disk Access guide for instructions.

Reading Your Scan Results

Once the scan is complete, you will see a full overview of what is taking up space on your Mac.

The left-hand sidebar lists all the scanned categories along with the number of results found in each. You can click on any category to view the individual files within it.

Each file entry shows:

• The file name and path.
• The file size.
• A checkbox for selecting the file for removal.

You can hover over a file and click the magnifying glass icon that appears to reveal the file in Finder.

Sorting Results

You can sort the files within any category by size in ascending or descending order. Use the sort controls at the top of the file list to quickly find the largest files.