This New Mac App Uses Animated Flies to Tell You When to Take Out the Trash

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that not everyone agrees on the best way to deal with their computer’s junk directory. Some people like to let it go until their computer screams about storage, while others empty it every day. I’m somewhere in the middle, but I try not to go too far. And I think I found the best tool for this job a few days ago: banana bin.

When the data held in the Trash folder exceeds a certain limit, Bananabin is surrounded by animated, vibrant flies that you can swat away with your mouse. And that. This is the application.

You can configure the flight limit from the application icon in the menu bar; the three options are Janitor Mode (10 MB), The Recycler (1 GB) and Garbage Hoarder (10 GB). The app is free now while it is in beta. Leon Schrijvers, one of Bananabin’s developers, said in an email to On the edge that they are still working out some bugs (heh). The flies won’t appear if you save the iCloud trash, nor if you keep the folder on an external drive. Additionally, it currently only works for macOS Sonoma, although they plan to add support for macOS Ventura later.

Something to note: Bananabin requires accessibility and full disk access permissions to work. The app’s website says this lets you find the Recycle Bin directory and check when it’s full. This seems plausible, but it’s something you should know in case this is a deal breaker for you.

If that’s okay with you, you can try the app by going to the Bananabin website (here’s the call one more time). You must provide an email address to obtain a download link.