Release notes
What changed in each version. BugBnB checks for updates once a day and offers new versions in its menu bar panel, so there’s nothing to download here — new installs always get the latest version from the home page.
Get BugBnB 1.12.1
- The first things you throw away from a disk count at once. macOS only makes a disk’s trash folder when something is first thrown away from it, and BugBnB didn’t notice it until the disk was plugged in again; the same went for iCloud Drive. After you grant Full Disk Access, these folders are found straight away too.
- Emptying a very big Trash: BugBnB now waits for Finder to finish. Before, it could report a failure after two minutes while Finder was still emptying.
- A disk’s trash folder only counts if it really is a folder on that disk. One that turns out to be a link to somewhere else is left alone — neither measured nor emptied.
- The Do Not Disturb shortcut: recording stops when you switch to another app (the shortcut used to stay switched off until you came back), and ⌘Q, ⌘W, ⌘C, ⌘V and other shortcuts every app needs can no longer be recorded by accident.
- Smaller fixes: the trash can on the desktop returns to its place when the display it stood on is plugged in again; number fields accept full-width digits; the menu bar shows no size while the Trash can’t be read, rather than 0 KB; percentages and the custom size’s unit are written the way your language writes them; and setting the clock back no longer lengthens the pest-free time after an extermination.
- Scouts come first: once the Stink-o-Meter passes 70 %, a lone scout drops by now and then, looks round and leaves — the guests aren’t far behind. It’s a switch on the Check-in page, on by default, and each rule there now shows how close it is to letting guests in.
- What’s in the Trash, on the Overview: the five biggest items and the five that have waited longest. Click one to see it in Finder.
- Try Out, on every guest card: invites just that kind of guest onto your desktop for half a minute, whether or not it’s switched on.
- A Do Not Disturb shortcut, set on the General page: press it in any app and the guests leave at once; press it again to let them back. A Focus can keep them away too (macOS 13 and later): add BugBnB to it in System Settings and switch on “Keep guests away”.
- Shortcuts, Raycast, Alfred or a script can drive BugBnB with bugbnb:// links — pause, Do Not Disturb, an open house, the pest control tools — such as bugbnb://pause?minutes=60 or bugbnb://open-house. Nothing that deletes anything is on offer.
- Fixes: on some Macs, macOS asks about the microphone when BugBnB starts, and BugBnB stood still until you answered. It now starts straight away, and the question says why it appears: BugBnB never listens or records, and works the same whichever you choose. When Finder is set to remove items after 30 days in the Trash, the age rule stops at 29 days. And granting Full Disk Access is now a drag of BugBnB’s icon into System Settings’ list.
- A click counts once. When hardly any guest is moving, BugBnB draws fewer frames, and one click could then count several times: a ladybird or rainbow stag beetle playing dead stayed down longer, and a cockroach peeking out was chased back in again and again.
- Emptying a big Trash with the garbage truck: Empty stays off until the Trash really is empty, and if something can’t be deleted, you’re told. Before, the truck could drive off first and the message was lost. Empty Trash in the icon’s menu and on the desktop trash can waits too.
- Sizes use the unit names of the language you picked in BugBnB straight away — Go in French, ГБ in Russian — written the way Finder writes them, without restarting.
- “Next guests arrive …” and “Last checked …” stay up to date while you look at them. The house ledger counts the space freed even when a locked item stops part of the emptying, and keeps its months in order whatever calendar your Mac uses.
- Smaller fixes: the arrival intervals on the Check-in page fit the smallest window in French and Portuguese, the readout labels on the Overview stay on one line in Spanish, Portuguese and Russian instead of breaking mid-word, and BugBnB lets go of memory sooner when guests come and go quickly.
- Quiet times, on the Check-in page: guests keep out of sight while any app uses the camera or microphone — a call, a meeting — and come back when it’s over. You can also set closed hours, like weekdays nine to six or every night.
- Empty just the old stuff: “Older Than 7 Days” in the menu bar panel and the icon’s menu deletes only what has waited longer than your age rule. The rest stays, and the garbage truck still comes.
- A house ledger on the Overview counts how often you emptied the Trash, how much space it freed, and how many guests were sprayed, burned, bottled or shooed — this month and all time. It never leaves your Mac.
- BugBnB now speaks ten languages: English, 简体中文, 繁體中文, 日本語, 한국어, Deutsch, Français, Español, Português (Brasil) and Русский. It follows your Mac’s language unless you pick one in General.
- Fixes: Do Not Disturb “Until Tomorrow” chosen after midnight now ends at 8 this morning, not the next day; guests pause while the screen is locked; and BugBnB checks permissions and the Trash only when it needs to, so it’s even lighter in the background.
- Updates are smaller: a copy that is up to date downloads only what changed. Website: available in the same ten languages, with the new features.
- Shoo! is described as you actually experience it, in the app and on the website: a whoosh, and a gust of air spreading from under the menu bar icon that leaves wind marks over each guest it reaches.
- Website: the Shoo! picture shows the gust reaching the guests again, and the check-in demo starts the way the app does, with only the Trash’s size switched on.
- Shoo! answers straight away: the claps and the gust no longer wait for a tool to come out of the menu bar, since Shoo! has none.
- Shoo! is described more closely to how it really sounds and looks, in the app and on the website, which also mentions that ladybirds and stag beetles play dead when clicked.
- A new Pest Control page in the main window, between Habits and General: each of the four tools with what it does, how long it takes to recover and how long new guests stay away, plus the rules they all share. Every readout is live, just like the cabinet in the menu bar panel.
- The Overview's pest control card is now a quick glance at each tool's state, with a Details… button that opens the new page.
- The website is brought up to date: a screenshot of the Pest Control page, the bug gourd alongside the other tools, Open House, and a fresh comparison with BananaBin.
- Shoo! is heard, not seen: the clapping hands are gone from under the menu bar, and two sharp claps still send every guest scattering.
- The Overview now introduces the pest control cabinet — what each of the four tools does, and what is still recharging or digesting — so the tools in the menu bar panel no longer need hover tips, and the panel is tidier without its gourd line.
- Shoo!'s hands are drawn anew. Two lifelike hands in shirt cuffs and sleeves reach down from the menu bar, wind up and clap palm to palm; a puff of air bursts from under their fingertips with every clap, and wind marks blow over each guest as the gust reaches it.
- The pest control demo on the website now plays each tool as the app does: the hands, the spray can and the torch come out under the menu bar icon, the spray or flame starts once the tool is in hand, and the flame sweeps the same way.
- A bug gourd joins the pest control cabinet. Uncork it and every guest on every display — the ones in hiding too — is drawn in alive and kept. It holds 60; each sealed batch is digested three minutes later and frees its places again, and it keeps counting while BugBnB is closed.
- All four tools are now real things that come out of the menu bar: a pair of hands that clap, a spray can, a little brass torch and the gourd. Only the icon you clicked hands one out, whichever display it is on.
- The tools are smaller, rounder and more carefully drawn, and they appear right under that icon instead of drifting off across the display.
- Shoo! now carries to every display: guests are startled one after another as the clap reaches them, and nobody is harmed.
- Switching pages in the main window now starts you at the top of the new page. Reading down the Overview and then opening Guests used to drop you into the middle of the gallery, with nothing to say there was more above.
- The garbage truck is now the right size next to your Trash. It is measured from the Dock's own icon, so it keeps the same proportions however large or small you keep the Dock — and it stays small enough to be a visitor on the Dock rather than a lorry across the desk.
- It drives sensibly on any screen too: it no longer crawls across a wide desk while you wait for the Trash to go, or shoot past on a small one.
- General has two new switches, both on to begin with: whether a truck comes to collect when you empty the Trash, and whether you hear it. Turn the sound off and the Trash keeps its own.
- The window and the menu bar panel now open inside the screen you are on, even if the window was last used on a much bigger one.
- Guest cards side by side are all the same height now: their paper lines up along the row, and the size plates and counters sit level instead of drifting up and down with the length of each guest's notes.
- Narrow the window and the pages follow: the guest cards go into one column instead of overlapping each other, and the Overview puts its status and guest cards under the meter rather than squeezing them into a sliver.
- The rainbow stag beetle's shadow turns with it. It used to hold the direction the beetle had before it turned round.
- The swallowtail is brighter: light green over the wings turning to blue-green, a glowing band and a sky-blue sheen on the hind wings.
- Its flight is calmer on screen: fewer, fuller wing strokes that stay smooth instead of flickering, and every few beats a glide on level wings, the way swallowtails really fly.
- Three new guests. The ladybird plods over the scraps, climbs to the top of windows to huddle with its friends, flies off with its red wing cases raised — and plays dead when you click it.
- The rainbow stag beetle, in mirror-polished armour from emerald to copper-red, lumbers in and sips for ages. It won’t run from your pointer: it turns to face it with its jaws wide open. Two of them will square up jaw to jaw until one backs off, and a click makes it play dead.
- The swallowtail bobs in on big velvet wings with a blue-green band, uncoils its long proboscis to sip, and patrols round the Trash in wide loops. It’s the most watchful guest of all.
- Turn them on in Guests; they’re off until you do. The website’s specimen drawer and live desk have all three.
- The garbage truck now sounds like one: a diesel working through its gears, brakes squealing and air brakes hissing as it pulls up, the reversing alarm, the hydraulics lifting the bin, the bin knocked against the hopper, the rubbish tumbling in, and a toot of the horn as it drives off. It gets louder as it comes in from the edge of the screen and moves from speaker to speaker as it goes by.
- Shoo! makes a sound too: two brisk claps and a swat of air.
- The website’s demos have sound as well: try the pest control tools and send the garbage truck round. A speaker switch on each console turns it off.
- The garbage truck drives in and out like a real truck: nose first from the edge of the screen, and away until the last of it has gone — no more fading out before it reaches the edge.
- The Trash now empties exactly as the garbage truck tips it: the arm takes the bin and lifts it, and the rubbish goes into the hopper at the moment the Dock’s icon empties — no longer a beat before.
- With the Dock on the left or right, the truck drives level again: it comes out from the Dock’s edge, stops at the Trash, and leaves across the screen by the far side.
- The garbage truck no longer turns round after emptying the Trash: it carries on the way it’s facing and drives out of the other side of the screen.
- With the Dock on the left or right, the truck now drives up or down along it — in from the top or bottom edge nearest the Trash — instead of across the middle of the screen, including on rotated displays.
- Emptying the Trash now comes with a collection. A little garbage truck drives in from the screen edge nearest the Dock’s Trash, reverses up to it, and tips the bin into its hopper — that is the moment your Trash actually empties — then drives off the way it came.
- It drives like a truck: it pulls away gently and brakes harder, the body dips on its springs while the wheels stay on the road, the wheels roll exactly as far as it travels, the beacon flashes, diesel puffs from the stack, and it swings round in a wide loop instead of flipping over.
- BugBnB can now count itself, anonymously: when it starts it sends a single signal, so it can be seen how many copies are installed and still in use, and which versions are worth keeping alive. No account, no name, nothing about your Trash — and a switch to turn it off in General › Privacy.
- A full privacy policy, in English and Chinese, reachable from General › Privacy and from About: exactly what leaves your Mac, where it goes, and how to stop it.
- Updating no longer seems to freeze BugBnB: if the updater has something to tell you while you're in another app, BugBnB now shows a bouncing Dock icon to bring it forward, instead of waiting behind the scenes with every window blocked.
- Bug Spray looks like a real spray now: a fine jet of droplets fans out from under the menu bar icon with just a hint of mist, instead of drifting clouds.
- Each guest it reaches gets a gust of droplets from the direction of the can, and beads of spray are left on the glass: the small ones dry first, and a heavier drop sometimes runs down.
- Pest control is now a walnut cabinet in the menu bar panel: Shoo!, Bug Spray and the Flamethrower each have a felt-lined compartment with a pilot lamp, a readout and gold ticks that light up as the tool recharges.
- The tools answer when you use them: a gust blows through Shoo!'s compartment, spray or flame bursts out before the show starts, and a tool at work shows as taken out.
- Leaving the panel open while a tool recharges no longer uses any resources.
- Bug Spray and the Flamethrower no longer slow your Mac down: even while they're at work, the rest of the system stays smooth and BugBnB stays light on resources.
- Their effects stay out of your way: a short puff or burst of flame under the menu bar icon, then mist, flames and ash only on the guests themselves — nothing covers your windows any more.
- A new Files readout next to Items counts every file in the Trash, including what's inside folders and app bundles.
- The Chinese interface now says 项目 (items) for the item count, matching Finder: a folder counts as one item, however many files it holds.
- Pest Control: Shoo!, Bug Spray and a Flamethrower now sit side by side in the menu bar panel, from gentle to final.
- Bug Spray fogs your displays from the menu bar: guests go frantic, fliers drop out of the air, they twitch on the spot, curl up their legs and fade away.
- The Flamethrower sweeps a jet of fire across the screen: guests burn, blacken and crumble to ash, leaving soot marks that slowly wear off the glass.
- Neither can be used back to back: the spray needs 3 minutes to build up pressure and the tank 10 minutes to refill, and afterwards no new guests check in for 10 or 30 minutes.
- Click a guest and it really runs: it bolts off the screen (or back to the nest), hides for a while, then peeks out, freezes, and creeps back only once it feels safe.
- Every scare now leaves a guest warier — it spots the pointer sooner, stops more often, keeps away from the Trash and grooms nervously until it settles down.
- Ants raise the alarm: the ones nearby scatter and stay on edge, and the alarm lingers in the nest, so the next workers set out slowly and hesitate on the trail.
- Buttons, switches and selectors feel like hardware: they sink while held and spring back, the switch knob stretches under your thumb, and the counter digits roll into place.
- Number fields apply as soon as you click elsewhere, switch pages or close the window — no need to press Return.
- Turn on Launch at Login right from the welcome card. If macOS needs your approval, BugBnB now says so and opens Login Items for you.
- Checks for updates once a day and offers new versions in the menu bar panel. Nothing installs until you say so.
- Full Disk Access and other permissions now survive updates.
- The disk image window shows its background at the right size.
- Five species with their real habits, roaming across all your displays.
- Four check-in rules with “any” logic, arriving all at once or in waves.
- A menu bar panel with the Stink-o-Meter, Do Not Disturb and Open House.
- English and Simplified Chinese, switchable in Settings.
