macOS Task Cleaner is an ecosystem designed to clear foreground clutter, terminate stuck application dialogs gracefully, and enforce strict multi-tier protection for macOS system sessions and developer workflows.

The project is structured into three coordinated components, with the Native Menu Bar GUI Client serving as the primary end-user flagship product:

The flagship client resides in your macOS menu bar, providing real-time foreground process scanning, whitelist defense visualization, and one-click session cleanup.

• Repository: https://github.com/macos-task-cleaner/macos-task-cleaner-gui
• Latest DMG Releases: Download from GitHub Releases

• Native Liquid Glass Aesthetics: Dark monitor screen squircle design harmonious with macOS Terminal and Activity Monitor.
• 4-Tier Whitelist Defense: Protects system sessions (L1), caller shell lineage (L2), background utilities (L3), and user rules (L4).
• Zero-Dialog Termination: Graceful SIGTERM polling escalating to SIGKILL, bypassing unclosable modal dialogs.
• Special Finder Handling: Native AppKit quit commands prevent Finder from crashing and immediately respawning.
• Custom Global Shortcuts: Configurable hotkeys (defaults to ⌥⇧K) with real-time key recording and reset controls.
• 24 Global Languages: Complete internationalization with automatic macOS system language detection.

• Repository: https://github.com/macos-task-cleaner/macos-task-cleaner-cli
• Description: High-speed command-line interface for terminal users, shell scripts, cron jobs, and Raycast/Alfred workflows.
• Commands: mtc clean, mtc list, mtc dry-run, mtc whitelist.

• Repository: https://github.com/macos-task-cleaner/macos-task-cleaner-core
• Description: Core Rust library exporting high-precision NSWorkspace foreground application discovery, process lineage verification, and POSIX signal management.

[User Interaction]
       |
       +---> [Task Cleaner GUI] (SwiftUI MenuBarExtra)  <-- PRIMARY PRODUCT
       |           |
       |           v (MTCBridge JSON IPC)
       +---> [mtc CLI] (Rust Command Line Tool)
                   |
                   v (Direct Crate Dependency)
       +---------------------------------------------+
       |   macos-task-cleaner-core (Rust Engine)    |
       |  - L1/L2/L3/L4 Whitelist Matrix             |
       |  - Native AppKit NSWorkspace Bindings       |
       |  - POSIX Signal Poller & Finder Safety      |
       +---------------------------------------------+

The macOS Task Cleaner suite is dual-licensed:

1. Open Source: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPLv3) for non-commercial and open-source usage.
2. Commercial License: Proprietary closed-source bundling, white-labeling, or integration into enterprise software requires a commercial license. Contact maintainers via repository issues or commercial inquiry guidelines.

Copyright (c) 2026 macOS Task Cleaner Organization. All rights reserved.