A storage workflow for you and your agent

Mint lets you see what’s using your disk, optimize storage without losing files, review cleanup, run Auto Care, organize files and manage memory, all in one Mac workflow. It sorts data into Optimizable, Safe to clean, Yours and Keep, so the next step fits what the data is and what changing it would do. Mint Direct’s CLI and MCP also let your agent read local storage data and run supported, journaled cleanup.

Choose the outcome, with context.

Mint looks at what data is, where it came from and whether it is in use. Then it separates opportunities to store it more efficiently, things you can clean, personal decisions and files to keep.

Care that continues with your workflow

Auto Care runs the supported Disk, folder and memory routines you enable, within the scope and schedule you choose while Mint is running.

Organize files by source, type, date or topic, with a preview and a record of the moves. Review app memory and release it separately from disk cleanup.

Auto Care is included in the Direct free tier from 1.0.92. From Direct 1.0.96, what it removes and the size of what it organizes count toward the free 1 GB a week that manual cleaning and organizing also use, and Mint Unlimited removes that limit. Memory release remains free and unlimited in Direct. Memory is also available in Setapp, but not the Mac App Store edition.

For your agent, with a clear scope

Mint Direct’s CLI and MCP let an agent inspect storage, understand growth and review supported cleanup. The current MCP execution tool moves eligible scan-plan items to Trash with a receipt. Conversation optimization, media removal, storage sharing, folder setup and memory management are reviewed in the app; they are not all MCP actions.

What comes with Mint Direct

Each time Mint Direct launches, it links mint-cli into /opt/homebrew/bin or /usr/local/bin, whichever it can write to, so the command works from any terminal. Run mint-cli status to see how your disk use changed across recent scans and mint-cli why to see what’s growing. mint-cli scan lists caches and junk that can go, and mint-cli agents reports what Codex, Claude Code and Cursor keep on disk.

The Mac App Store and Setapp editions don’t include the CLI or the MCP server. Cleanup an agent runs through Mint counts toward the same cleanup allowance as cleanup you do in the app.

Connecting your agent over MCP

Running mint-cli mcp starts an MCP server on your Mac that talks to your agent over standard input and output. Scans and cleanup go through the Mint app, and the other tools read data Mint already keeps on disk.

  1. Download Mint Direct from the Mint website and open it once.
  2. Run mint-cli status in Terminal and check that it prints your disk summary.
  3. Add an MCP server to your agent’s settings with mint-cli as the command and mcp as the argument.
  4. Restart the agent and ask it what’s using space on your Mac.

What the agent can see

The server has eight tools. mint_status and mint_why cover disk trends and where growth came from. mint_scan runs Mint’s own read-only cleanup scan and returns each item with its reason and whether an agent may act on it.

mint_recent and mint_activity read the operation journal and the activity log, mint_agents reads Mint’s last AI agents scan, and mint_rules lists your cleanup rules or does a dry run of one. None of these change anything on disk.

What happens when the agent cleans up

Only mint_execute changes files. It takes the plan ID from a recent mint_scan, the item IDs the agent picked and a short reason, and it never accepts a file path. A plan expires after 15 minutes and can be used once. Right before touching each file, Mint checks again that it’s the same file, that nothing is using it and that it’s still allowed.

Everything goes to the Trash, even if the app is set to delete permanently, and the result carries a journal batch ID. You can undo an eligible move as long as the files and the history it needs are still there. The journal keeps up to 90 days or 5,000 batches. Trashed files take space until you empty the Trash, so the result reports that figure separately.

Your ignore list applies to agents too

Paths on Mint’s Ignore List keep the level you gave them when an agent asks. Protected paths never show up in the agent’s scans. A Needs Review path can appear in results, but the agent can’t remove it, so you confirm it in the app.

With the journal you can trace what an agent did and usually undo it. It can’t make every choice a good one, so keep version control and backups for work you can’t replace.

Our Mac test: one trailing slash made rm -rf delete the folder behind a symlink

Frequently asked questions

Which Mint editions include the CLI and MCP server?

Only the Direct edition you download from the Mint website. The Mac App Store and Setapp editions don’t include them.

Can an agent permanently delete files through Mint?

Not through the MCP tools. mint_execute only moves files to the Trash, and anything that needs permanent deletion waits for you in the Mint app.

Will connecting Mint stop my agent from using rm?

Not by itself. The MCP server asks the agent to use mint_execute for cleanup, but it can’t block the shell, so keep your agent’s own permission settings in place.

Start with a question about your storage

Connect Mint Direct to your agent and ask what grew, what can be optimized and what needs your decision. Then review the action in Mint, or run the supported MCP cleanup.

Choose your Mint plan