An orphaned asset is one that no scene or prefab references any more - the imported texture you replaced, the test prefab you forgot, the material nothing points at. They bloat the project and slow everyone down, and Unity does not make them easy to find.
Why orphans are hard to spot in Unity
Unity references assets by GUID through their .meta files, not by path, so you cannot eyeball what is used by reading names. On top of that, assets in Resources and Addressables can be loaded by name or address at runtime, so "unused" is genuinely ambiguous. That is why a careful, reviewable check beats deleting things and hoping.
How the checker helps
It walks references from your scenes and prefabs and surfaces the assets nothing points at, grouped by type so you can scan them quickly. It flags rather than deletes: you review the list, keep anything loaded dynamically from Resources or Addressables, and remove the rest. It is the safe way to shrink a project without breaking a build.
Turn orphans into a clean project
Finding orphans is step one of a project cleanup. Combine it with the naming check and export a report so the team can agree on what to cut before you remove anything.
Frequently asked questions
What is an orphaned asset in Unity?
An asset that no scene or prefab references any more. Because Unity links assets by GUID, these are hard to spot by hand, so the checker surfaces them for you.
Is it safe to delete what it finds?
Review first. Assets loaded by name from Resources or by address from Addressables can look orphaned but are used at runtime, so the checker flags rather than deletes.