Clearing ~/Library/Caches rarely breaks anything. It also rarely keeps the space for long. Apps rebuild what they need within days, so the useful question is which folder inside it grew large and what that folder holds, because “cache” covers both throwaway thumbnails and files an app treats as content.
Main rule: quit the app before you touch its cache folder, move the folder to Trash instead of erasing it, and keep the Trash for a day.
Quick answer
- Measure first with
du -sh ~/Library/Caches/* | sort -h | tail -20. - Quit the apps whose caches you plan to clear.
- Move individual subfolders to Trash rather than the whole
Cachesfolder. - Leave
/System/Library/Cachesalone. - Expect the space to return as you keep using the apps.
- When one subfolder is huge, look for a setting inside that app before deleting anything.
What lives in ~/Library/Caches
macOS keeps three separate cache trees, and only one of them is yours to manage.
| Path | Who owns it | Should you touch it |
|---|---|---|
~/Library/Caches | your user account | yes, folder by folder |
/Library/Caches | every user on the Mac | with care, and admin rights |
/System/Library/Caches | macOS itself | no, System Integrity Protection guards it |
Inside ~/Library/Caches each folder is named after the bundle identifier of the app that created it: com.apple.dt.Xcode, com.spotify.client, com.microsoft.VSCode. A few tools use plain names instead, such as Homebrew or go-build.
Open Finder and press Shift-Command-G to reach the folder, or list it in the terminal:
du -sh ~/Library/Caches/* | sort -h | tail -20The output ranks the folders by size. Most of them hold a few megabytes and deserve no attention.
What breaks when you empty it
Less than people expect.
- apps regenerate or re-download what they need;
- the first launch after a clear takes longer;
- browsers pull pages from the network instead of from disk;
- some apps show empty previews until they rebuild their thumbnails.
What a cache clear does not touch:
- passwords and other Keychain items;
- settings in
~/Library/Preferences; - documents and app data in
~/Library/Application Supportand~/Library/Containers.
The exceptions are the reason to look before you delete. A handful of apps park real content in Caches: offline audio, downloaded video, map tiles, mail attachments. The folder name says cache, the content behaves like a download you would rather keep. Checking the three or four largest folders takes a minute and settles this.
Which folders carry the size
The heavy folders come from the apps you use most.
- Browsers. Chrome writes to
~/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome. Safari keeps its cache inside its container at~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Safari, so it never shows up in the list above. - Streaming and media clients. Offline content often lands in the cache folder, which is exactly the case where deleting means re-downloading.
- Developer tooling.
com.apple.dt.Xcodegrows with every build and index pass.Homebrew,go-build,Yarn, andpipkeep their own folders. The npm cache sits at~/.npminstead. - Chat and productivity apps. Slack, Discord, and Electron apps in general cache aggressively and rebuild without complaint.
Why the space comes back
A cache exists so an app can skip work it already did. Clear it and the app starts paying that cost again, which means writing the files back. Within a week most of the space is gone.
That makes cache cleanup a one-time relief, not a fix. If your disk keeps filling up, the cause sits somewhere else: snapshots, developer artifacts, large media, or duplicated files. macOS itself also clears caches when free space runs low, which is part of what the space readout in Finder reports as purgeable.
The order that keeps you out of trouble
- Measure the folders and write down the three largest.
- Open each of those apps and check its settings for a cache or storage limit. Spotify, Chrome, and Xcode all expose one.
- Quit the app.
- Move its cache folder to Trash. Leave the rest alone.
- Use the Mac for a day before you empty the Trash.
- Measure again to see what actually stayed free.
Step 5 is the one people skip. It costs nothing, and it turns an irreversible deletion into a reversible one.
Where /Library/Caches differs
The root-level /Library/Caches belongs to every account on the Mac and needs admin rights. Installers, updaters, and some system-adjacent services write there. It is smaller than the user folder on most Macs, and the same rule applies: clear a named subfolder when you know what put it there, and leave the rest.
/System/Library/Caches is a different matter. macOS manages it, System Integrity Protection blocks changes, and no cleanup tool should be promising you space from it.
Bottom line
Deleting folders inside ~/Library/Caches is safe for almost every app, and pointless as a habit. Do it when one folder has grown large enough to matter, quit the app first, move the folder to Trash, and check what the app kept there before you empty it. Then look elsewhere for the space that keeps disappearing.
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to delete ~/Library/Caches on Mac?
Clearing folders inside ~/Library/Caches breaks little, because apps rebuild what they need. Quit the app first, move the subfolder to Trash instead of erasing it, and check the large folders before you clear them, since a few apps keep downloaded content there rather than disposable data.
Will deleting Library Caches log me out or remove my passwords?
No. Passwords live in the Keychain, settings live in ~/Library/Preferences, and app data lives in ~/Library/Application Support and ~/Library/Containers. Clearing a cache folder touches none of those. A small number of apps keep session data in their cache and ask you to sign in again.
How much space does clearing Library Caches free on a Mac?
It depends on which apps you run. Browsers, streaming clients, and developer tools produce the largest cache folders, and a single one can reach several gigabytes. Run du -sh ~/Library/Caches/* | sort -h | tail -20 to see the real numbers on your Mac before you decide the cleanup is worth it.
Do Mac caches come back after you delete them?
Yes. A cache exists so an app can avoid repeating work, so the folder refills as you use the app. That is why cache cleanup is a one-time relief rather than a fix for a disk that keeps filling up.
Can I delete /System/Library/Caches?
Leave it alone. System Integrity Protection guards that path, macOS manages it, and nothing there belongs to your apps. The user-level ~/Library/Caches is the folder you can manage.
Is it safe to delete all caches at once?
Emptying the whole ~/Library/Caches folder in one move usually works, but it also clears folders you never inspected and any downloaded content that an app filed as cache. Clearing the few large subfolders gets you most of the space with a smaller blast radius.