Why AI coding agents take up so much space on your Mac
Most of that space is conversation history, and most of the history is screenshots. Codex and Claude Code store every screenshot inside the conversation file itself, and a long session often stores the same one again and again. On one developer Mac, 1,231 Codex conversations took 22.8 GB, 71% of it images, while images that appeared only once made up 16%.
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.
Choose the guide for the tool using the space
Claude Desktop: VM bundle, local tasks and cloud sessions
Codex: conversation images and safe next steps
Where each tool keeps its data
Codex keeps conversations as .jsonl files in ~/.codex/sessions and moves them to ~/.codex/archived_sessions when you archive one. Archiving only moves the file, so it frees no space. Its caches and runtimes sit in the same folder.
Claude Code writes one .jsonl file per session under ~/.claude/projects, in a folder named after the project path. On the Mac we measured, about 30% of those bytes were embedded images. Its debug logs and file snapshots live next to the sessions and can end up larger than the sessions themselves.
Cursor stores chat history in a state database and chat images as ordinary files under workspaceStorage. Claude Desktop can have cloud conversations, local Cowork runtimes and local Claude Code sessions, so check which mode you use before you treat any local folder as disposable.
Doing it by hand
Look before you delete anything. Each of these folders mixes data the tool can rebuild with data it can’t, and running rm -rf on ~/.codex or ~/.claude takes every conversation and your settings with it.
- Quit the agent, including any CLI session still open in a terminal.
- Run du -sh on the tool’s folder and its subfolders to find which part is large.
- Remove conversations you are done with one at a time, through the tool itself when it has a delete command.
- Clear cache folders only while the tool is closed, and leave settings and databases alone.
What Mint adds
Mint reads the conversation files on your Mac and shows Codex, Claude and Cursor by name in the Disk tab. Space it can give back is shown apart from space that’s in use, and conversation contents are processed locally.
The current version of Mint has three actions for Codex conversations. Optimize shrinks the space that supported repeated screenshots take and keeps the pictures Codex reads when you continue the conversation. It can also store eligible PNG images in less space with the same pixels, and you can undo it as long as the original data and history it needs are still there. Remove media keeps the conversation text and permanently removes embedded images, audio and video, leaving placeholders instead of small previews. Delete permanently removes the whole selected conversation through Codex. Support depends on the tool, the format and the version, so read the action and its confirmation in your installed edition before you go ahead.
For Claude Code, Mint lists conversations untouched for 90 days or more so you can review them one at a time. Nothing is preselected. Selected sessions and their companion folders can go to the Trash or be deleted permanently. That removes whole sessions and is separate from Codex media optimization. While an agent is closed, Mint offers its full caches; while it runs, Mint offers only the cache entries nothing is using. In the Direct and Setapp editions, Claude Desktop’s Cowork bundle shows up unticked and can be removed only after you quit Claude. You still need to check local tasks and backups, and a local runtime may be provisioned again.
Watch the demo (0:17): Historical demo: earlier image previews. See the current action descriptions above.
Things to check before you delete
Some Codex conversations are forks, and a fork reads part of its history straight out of another conversation’s file by byte position. If that base file gets shorter, Codex can no longer open the fork. Mint won’t rewrite a conversation another one depends on, and a cleanup script of your own should check for this too.
Codex also writes each completed step twice on purpose, and that repeated text is what it reads back. After any change you make yourself, open the conversation in the agent and check that it still loads.
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to delete the ~/.codex folder?
Not the whole folder. It holds every conversation along with Codex’s settings and local state. Remove the conversations you don’t need and clear caches while Codex is closed.
Does archiving a Codex conversation free disk space?
No. Archiving moves the .jsonl file from sessions to archived_sessions, and every byte stays on disk until the conversation is optimized or deleted.
Why is one conversation file several gigabytes?
Screenshots are stored in the file, and each time a long session compacts its context it stores the same screenshot again. On one Mac, a 14.8 GB conversation held just 155 MB of unique image content.
What does Optimize do to a conversation?
Optimize keeps the pictures Codex reads when you continue a supported conversation, and you can undo it as long as the originals and history it needs are still there. Remove media is a separate, permanent action. It keeps the text and removes images, audio and video, with no small previews left and no Undo.
See what your agents are keeping
Run a scan and look at the Codex, Claude and Cursor rows in the Disk tab before you optimize or delete anything.