Developer caches on macOS you can safely delete

How to read this reference

Each table row is one cache, with:

• Path: the default location on macOS. If you've changed it with an environment variable or setting, the tool's "show path" command tells you where yours is.
• Typical size: a rough range to tell you whether it's worth looking at. These are estimates, not measurements; yours may be far smaller or larger. Measure with du -sh <path>.
• Safe?: Safe means the tool can rebuild or re-download it with no loss. Check first means it's rebuildable but costs something real (a large download, a project setup step) or you might still be using it. Your files means it can hold data you can't get back.
• Comes back?: whether it refills on its own as you work.
• Clean with: the official command where one exists. Where none exists, moving the folder to the Trash with the tool closed is the safe fallback.

Rows marked (not documented) are paths I could confirm on a real Mac or from community sources but not in the tool's own documentation. Treat them with a little more care.

To measure everything in one go:

$ du -sh ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData ~/Library/Caches/* ~/.npm ~/.gradle/caches \
$   ~/.m2/repository ~/.cargo/registry ~/go/pkg/mod ~/.cache/* 2>/dev/null | sort -hr | head -25

Apple: Xcode, simulators, Swift and iOS dependencies

Details and commands: How to clear Xcode DerivedData and old simulators.

pod cache clean refuses to clear everything without --all, by design. swift package purge-cache is listed in swift package --help as "Purge the global repository cache".

Shedi checks the big ones for you in about 10 secondsXcode, Docker, node_modules and the npm, pnpm, Yarn, Homebrew, CocoaPods, SwiftPM, Cargo, Gradle, pip and Go caches, each explained. Docker and Homebrew are cleaned with their own commands.

Get Shedi

Homebrew

$ brew cleanup -n          # dry run: show what would be removed
$ brew cleanup             # remove old versions and downloads older than 120 days
$ brew cleanup --prune=all # remove all cached downloads, regardless of age

Homebrew already runs brew cleanup for the packages you install or upgrade, and for everything every 30 days, unless HOMEBREW_NO_INSTALL_CLEANUP is set. brew cleanup -s also scrubs downloads for the latest versions, but never the downloads of installed formulae or casks.

JavaScript: npm, pnpm, Yarn, Bun

Details, including why deleting node_modules in a pnpm project frees less than du says: Delete node_modules safely.

Python: pip, Poetry, uv

Notes:

• uv on macOS uses ~/.cache/uv, not ~/Library/Caches. Its docs call uv cache prune "safe to run periodically"; uv cache clean empties the cache entirely. uv cache size shows how big it is.
• Poetry's virtualenvs live inside its cache folder by default, so clearing the whole Poetry folder by hand also removes every project's environment. Prefer poetry cache clear, which only touches cached packages.

Rust: Cargo

The Cargo Book says that "in theory, you can always remove any part of the cache and Cargo will do its best to restore sources", by re-extracting or re-downloading them. Leave ~/.cargo/bin alone: that's where cargo install puts your tools, and on many setups the Rust toolchain itself is reached through it.

Per-project target/ folders are often bigger than the global cache; they're Rust's equivalent of node_modules and DerivedData combined, so check them first.

Go

Go's docs describe the build cache's default as "a subdirectory named go-build in the standard user cache directory", which on macOS is ~/Library/Caches. Use go clean -modcache rather than rm -rf or the Trash: Go makes module cache directories read-only by default, so a plain delete fails part-way.

Java and Kotlin: Gradle and Maven

Gradle's documentation lists automatic cleanup periods: released wrapper distributions 30 days, snapshot distributions 7 days, downloaded resources 30 days, created resources 7 days, build cache entries 7 days, daemon logs 14 days. Cleanup "runs in the background when the Gradle daemon is stopped or shut down". If you delete ~/.gradle/caches by hand, stop the daemons first:

$ ./gradlew --stop      # or: gradle --stop
$ mv ~/.gradle/caches ~/.Trash/gradle-caches

Android

~/Library/Android/sdk is Android Studio's default SDK location on macOS; Android Studio's SDK Manager shows where yours is. An AVD holds the emulator's data, including apps and anything you set up inside it, so treat it as yours.

Editors and IDEs

JetBrains documents that installing a new major version of an IDE "automatically deletes the caches and logs directories for older versions of the IDE that have not been updated in the last 180 days", while the configuration and plugins directories "will remain forever, unless you remove them manually".

Containers and browsers for testing

Docker details: Reclaim disk space from Docker on a Mac. Playwright's docs show each browser taking "a few hundred megabytes", and Playwright already removes browser versions no installed Playwright needs any more. npx playwright uninstall removes the browsers of the current installation; --all removes those of every installation.

What not to delete

• Parent folders. ~/Library/Developer, ~/.gradle, ~/.m2, ~/.cargo, ~/.android, ~/Library/Application Support/Code. Each mixes caches with settings, credentials, tools or your data.
• Docker's Docker.raw from Finder: it holds volumes too.
• Anything in /System or /Library to chase a cache. None of the caches above require it, and the ones that live there (like simulator runtimes) have their own commands.
• Caches of a running tool. Quit the IDE, stop the Gradle daemon, stop Docker builds first.

For the non-developer side of a full disk (Photos, iOS backups, Downloads, System Data), see How to free up space on a Mac without losing anything.

A five-minute routine

# Apple
$ mv ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData ~/.Trash/
$ xcrun simctl delete unavailable

# Package managers
$ brew cleanup
$ npm cache verify
$ pnpm store prune
$ go clean -cache
$ pip cache purge

# Docker
$ docker system df
$ docker builder prune

Run what applies to you, then measure again. I built Shedi because I was running some version of this list by hand every few weeks; it does the same with an explanation per item and everything that can go to the Trash going there first. If you'd rather keep doing it yourself, this page will stay updated.

Sources

• Apple Developer: Downloading and installing additional Xcode components
• Homebrew: brew cleanup (man brew)
• npm Docs: npm cache
• pnpm Docs: pnpm store and store settings
• Yarn Docs: yarn cache clean
• Bun Docs: global cache
• pip Docs: pip cache
• Poetry Docs: configuration (cache-dir) and CLI (cache clear)
• uv Docs: caching
• The Cargo Book: Cargo home
• Go: cmd/go (go clean, build cache)
• Gradle User Manual: Gradle directories
• Maven Dependency Plugin: purge-local-repository
• Android Developers: avdmanager, sdkmanager, emulator command line
• JetBrains: Directories used by the IDE
• VS Code Docs: Uninstall (data folder locations)
• Docker Docs: Prune unused Docker objects
• Playwright Docs: Browsers
• Puppeteer Docs: Configuration and @puppeteer/browsers
• Electron Docs: Installation (cache)