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Is it safe to delete Library caches on Mac?

Published 2026-11-11

Mostly yes, for the folders inside ~/Library/Caches that belong to apps you have quit. An app rebuilds what it needs, and the cost is slower first use and a re-download. The exceptions matter: some apps keep offline downloads or half-finished work in a cache folder, Apple's own com.apple.* folders are better left alone, and the folder you want to clear is often not in ~/Library/Caches at all. Measure, delete a little, quit apps first, and keep the Bin until you have opened every app you touched.

What is in each Caches folder

There are three places called Caches, and they are not equal.

  • ~/Library/Caches is yours, written by apps running as you. Deleting contents here is allowed and the usual target.
  • /Library/Caches is shared by all users and needs an administrator password to change. It is usually small.
  • /System/Library/Caches belongs to macOS and is protected by System Integrity Protection. You cannot and should not delete it. macOS manages it.

Each app gets a folder named after its bundle identifier (com.company.app) or its own name. Inside is whatever the developer decided to cache: thumbnails, downloaded images, compiled code, web data, search indexes.

Measure first

du -sh ~/Library/Caches
du -sh ~/Library/Caches/* 2>/dev/null | sort -hr | head -15

The output has this shape, with sizes first and the biggest on top:

4.3G	/Users/you/Library/Caches
3.0G	/Users/you/Library/Caches/com.vendor.app
730M	/Users/you/Library/Caches/AnotherApp
319M	/Users/you/Library/Caches/Homebrew

On the Mac used to check this guide, the whole folder was 4.3 GB and one folder was 3.0 GB of it. That shape is common: one or two apps account for most of it, and everything else is noise. Clear the top few and skip the long tail.

Some entries show "Operation not permitted" (for example com.apple.Safari or CloudKit). macOS protects these from Terminal unless you grant Full Disk Access. That is a sign to leave them.

The manual method

  1. Quit the app whose cache you are clearing. An app that is running can recreate the files at once or crash on a missing one.
  2. In Finder choose Go > Go to Folder (Shift+Cmd+G) and enter ~/Library/Caches.
  3. Open the app's folder and drag the contents to the Bin, leaving the folder itself. Some apps misbehave when the folder is missing.
  4. Open the app and use it for a minute.
  5. Empty the Bin after a day or two.

The Terminal equivalent permanently removes the contents, with no Bin:

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.vendor.app/*

This removes only that app's cache contents. It does not touch the app, its settings or its documents. It is not recoverable, so use the Finder route unless you are sure.

What breaks if you get it wrong

  • Offline content disappears. Some music, video, podcast and reading apps store downloaded-for-offline items under Caches. Deleting them means downloading again, and on a slow connection or while travelling that costs you the thing you downloaded for later. Check the app's offline setting before clearing its cache.
  • Unsynced work. A few apps keep drafts or queued uploads in a cache folder. They are rare, but the loss is permanent.
  • Apple's own caches. Deleting com.apple.* entries can cause slow launches, blank icons or Spotlight and Siri re-indexing for hours. The space comes back on its own anyway. Leave them.
  • A slow Mac afterwards. Caches exist to save work. After clearing a browser or editor cache, that app is slower once while it rebuilds. The disk space you gained can partly come back within days.

What most articles get wrong

They tell you to clear ~/Library/Caches and stop. But apps from the Mac App Store and many modern apps run in a sandbox, and the sandbox gives each one its own Library inside ~/Library/Containers. Their caches are at:

~/Library/Containers/<bundle-id>/Data/Library/Caches
~/Library/Group Containers/<group-id>/Library/Caches

Check them with:

du -sh ~/Library/Containers/*/Data/Library/Caches 2>/dev/null | sort -hr | head

Developer tools put their caches elsewhere too. ~/Library/Caches/Homebrew is visible, but npm uses ~/.npm, pip uses ~/Library/Caches/pip, and Xcode puts build output under ~/Library/Developer. For Xcode, see Clear Xcode DerivedData.

The second thing they get wrong is the promise. Clearing caches rarely frees as much as the articles suggest. If your disk is full, the cause is more often large files, app data, backups or snapshots. Look at how to free up space on your Mac in order and stop when you have the space you need.

Third, macOS already purges some caches itself when space runs low. A cache that took 2 GB yesterday may be smaller today without you doing anything.

Browser caches

Do this inside the browser. In Safari, Settings > Advanced and enable the Develop menu, then Develop > Empty Caches. In Chrome, Settings > Privacy and security > Delete browsing data, and tick only "Cached images and files", leaving cookies unticked so you stay signed in. Deleting cookies logs you out of every site.

Using Spotless for this

Spotless lists app cache folders with their sizes and leaves everything unticked after a scan. You tick what you want, review the list, and the items move to the Trash, where you can put them back. It keeps a "Recently Deleted" list of what it moved. It does not judge whether a given cache holds offline downloads, so check offline-capable apps yourself. See how Spotless handles safety.

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