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Caches · free up space

How to clear the cache on a Mac

By , Caddora · Updated

Quit your apps, then empty ~/Library/Caches and ~/.cache. Everything in them regenerates, so the only cost is apps opening a little slower the first time. Leave macOS's temporary folder to a restart, and do not expect the space to stay free.

The caches that matter

  • ~/Library/Caches — per-app caches for everything you run, browsers included. This is the big one.
  • ~/.cache — hidden, and shared by command-line and developer tools. It is also where some AI tools keep the models and runtimes they download, which can make it much larger than its name suggests.
  • /Library/Caches — system-wide caches, owned by root. On the Mac this app was built on it held 4.5 MB on 25 September 2026: not worth an administrator password.
  • /private/var/folders — macOS's temporary and per-user cache area. Not yours to delete while the Mac is running.

Measuring them

du -sh ~/Library/Caches ~/.cache 2>/dev/null
du -sh ~/Library/Caches/* 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tail -15

The second line names the apps, largest last, which is usually more useful than the total.

Clearing them by hand

  1. Quit every app you can. A running app rewrites its cache while you delete it, and some crash.
  2. In Finder, press Shift-Command-G, go to ~/Library/Caches, and move the folders you want gone to the Trash. Delete the contents, not the Caches folder itself.
  3. Do the same for ~/.cache (press Shift-Command-. to show hidden folders). Check what is in it first: a downloaded model can take a long time to fetch again.
  4. Empty the Trash. Until you do, nothing is freed.
  5. Restart, which clears most of /private/var/folders safely.

For a browser alone, use its own setting rather than Finder: in Safari, Settings → Advanced → Show features for web developers, then Develop → Empty Caches; in Chrome, Delete browsing data with only "Cached images and files" ticked. That clears the cache without touching passwords or sign-ins.

What one Mac looked like

On the Mac this app was built on, read on 1 October 2026: ~/Library/Caches held 0.51 GB and the hidden ~/.cache held 1.56 GB — three times as much, and every byte of it one AI coding tool's downloaded runtimes. On a developer's Mac the hidden folder is often the bigger of the two, and it is the one people forget exists.

Why it grows back

Because that is what a cache is for. Apps rebuild what they use, so clearing it helps when the disk is short or a cache has gone stale, and it is not a speed boost. If your caches refill to the same size within a week, the space was never really spare, and a scheduled clean when the disk runs low beats clearing everything by hand.

Where the app comes in

RefreshYourMac measures Application Caches, the command-line tool cache, Chrome's cache and developer package caches as separate categories, each rated Safe to Remove. It holds back a cache while the app that owns it is running, never touches Chrome's passwords or sign-ins, and shows macOS's temporary folder with the advice to restart rather than a delete button. It can clear the safe ones on a schedule, or when free space falls below a level you choose. For everything else worth checking, see how to free up space on a Mac.