DiskFox vs DaisyDisk

Short answer. DaisyDisk draws your disk as a map of rings, so you can spot what's big right now, on any disk. DiskFox keeps a dated history of your Mac's startup disk, so you can see what grew, when, and the likely cause. Choose DaisyDisk for a picture of today. Choose DiskFox if your free space keeps shrinking and you don't know why.

We make DiskFox, so weigh our view accordingly. Everything about DaisyDisk below comes from its maker's own pages, linked at the end, and was checked in October 2026. Where we didn't find something on those pages, we say "not advertised": the app may still do it.

Side by side

	DaisyDisk	DiskFox
Price	$9.99 one-time, lifetime licence	One-time, for up to 2 Macs (your local price is shown above)
Free trial	Free trial download	Every feature free for 14 days, no card needed
Visual disk map	Yes, rings you click into	No, lists and groups
History of what changed	Not advertised	Yes: what grew, when, and the likely cause
Disks	Internal, external and network disks	Your Mac's startup disk only
System Data	Explains it and detects macOS snapshots	Estimates what's inside it and tracks how it changes
Exact duplicates	Not advertised	Yes, checked byte by byte
Apps with their data	Not advertised	Yes, with Review Uninstall
Removing files	From inside the app	Review first; most items move to the Trash
Where to get it	Direct download or the Mac App Store	Direct download only
macOS	10.13 or later	14 or later, Apple silicon and Intel

When DaisyDisk is the better choice

• You want a picture. A map makes one huge folder jump out, and some people find that faster than a list.
• You want to check an external or network drive. DiskFox only measures your startup disk.
• Your Mac runs macOS 13 or earlier. DiskFox needs macOS 14 or later.
• You'd rather buy from the Mac App Store. DiskFox is only sold from its website.

When DiskFox is the better choice

• Your storage keeps filling up and you don't know why. A map shows today. DiskFox compares each scan with the last and tells you what changed, for example "Storage use grew by 30.2 GB this week", with each change dated.
• You want to know the cause, not just the folder. Each change is labelled Cause when DiskFox measured the location, or Likely cause when it's an inference, such as growth soon after a macOS update.
• You want grouped answers. DiskFox sorts your disk into groups you can act on, such as developer data, app caches, virtual machines and iPhone backups, and says what's safe to remove.
• You want to check before anything is removed. Cleanup is review-first, and most items go to the Trash, where you can put them back.

Can you use both?

Yes. They don't get in each other's way. Some people use a map to find something big once, and DiskFox to watch what grows back over the following weeks.

Sources

• DaisyDisk: daisydiskapp.com and its Mac App Store page, checked October 2026. Prices change, so check before you buy.
• For more apps, including GrandPerspective, CleanMyMac and OmniDiskSweeper, see the best Mac storage analyzers compared.