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Clearing storage space on macOS

As we all know, Mac's come with relatively small storage space, so we need to keep periodically cleaning up files periodically. Especially when doing software development which adds up a lot of cache files around the system.

macOS misc

rm -rf ~/'Library/Caches/com.apple.nsurlsessiond'/*
rm -rf ~/'Library/Containers/com.apple.Home/Data/Library/Caches'/*
rm -rf ~/'Library/Containers/com.apple.iMovieApp/Data/Library/Caches'/*
rm -rf ~/'Library/Containers/com.apple.mediaanalysisd/Data/Library/Caches'

# deletes /private/var/db/diagnostics
sudo log erase --all

Homebrew​

brew cleanup

Node.js, npm and yarn​

I use mostly yarn berry so clear others

rm -rf ~/.npm
rm -rf ~/.node-gyp
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/node-gyp
rm -rf ~/Library/pnpm/store

# Delete all yarn v1 caches:
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/Yarn

# For yarn berry, remove large deps:
find ~/.yarn/berry/cache -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type f -exec du -sm {} + | awk '$1 > 5 {print $2}' | xargs -r rm -rf

# Don't delete! yarn/corepack cache is here
# rm -rf ~/.cache/node

Chromium / Chrome​

⚠️ Close all the Chromium based apps first!

# Chromium app cache
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/{Claude,Code,'GitHub Desktop',Slack,LosslessCut,SwimClips,'SwimClips Coach Recorder','SwimClips Recorder','SwimClips Uploader',Local,Cypress,beekeeper-studio}/{Cache,'Code Cache',GPUCache}

# Claude Cowork VM, see also https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/57371#issuecomment-4633312480
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/{vm_bundles,claude-code-vm}

# Slack (App Store):
rm -rf ~/'Library/Containers/com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap/Data/Library/Application Support/Slack/Cache/Cache_Data'

# Chrome crashpad
rm -f ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Crashpad/completed/*.dmp

# Service worker cache and indexeddb
mkdir -p ~/Desktop/chrome-cache-todo-delete/service-worker
mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Service\ Worker/{CacheStorage,ScriptCache} ~/Desktop/chrome-cache-todo-delete/service-worker/
mkdir -p ~/Desktop/chrome-cache-todo-delete/indexeddb
mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/IndexedDB ~/Desktop/chrome-cache-todo-delete/indexeddb/

# VSCode (Note: close VSCode first)
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Code/User/History/*

# Old Electron user data can cause crashes too: https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/47947#issuecomment-3199650075
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Electron

# Squirrel updater
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/*.ShipIt

Docker​

⚠️ Start docker first.

docker system prune --volumes --all
#docker rmi $(docker images -q)
#rm -rf ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/*

Other software you might have​

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/'Raspberry Pi'/Imager
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/typescript
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/Firefox

macOS manual UI​

open x-apple.systempreferences:com.apple.settings.Storage

Chrome manual​

  • chrome://settings/clearBrowserData -> Cached images and files
  • chrome://settings/content/all -> Sort by: Data stored

Manual file system check​

sudo ncdu --exclude /System/Volumes/Data /
# or
ncdu ~/Library/Caches/

Dev manual​

# must be manually moved to Trash from Finder due to macOS security:
open -R ~/Library/Caches/dotslash
open -R /Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store

# Old Electron versions
ncdu ~/Library/Caches/electron

# Playwright cache
ncdu ~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright

# Delete old versions (and current) of React Native Pods
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/CocoaPods/Pods/External
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/ReactNative

rm -rf ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.CoreDevice.CoreDeviceService/Data/Library/Caches

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData
rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/'iOS DeviceSupport'
rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives/*