Where Is Library Cache On A Mac

FonePaw - Solution - Eraser - Access and Delete Caches on MacBook Air

You can delete app cache on Mac in the same way as user cache, by going to /Library/Caches and removing the insides of the folders with the app name. Proceed with caution! Not all app cache can be safely cleared. Some app developers keep important user info on cache folders. Backing up a folder before you delete is always a good idea. Yes, it is safe. That said, don't just delete all the contents of your cache folder without reason. It can be beneficial to clear out those taking up the significant space in your /Library/Caches/ if you need to free some up, but you really shouldn't clear any contents of your /System/Caches unless there is a problem. As would be expected, you will find that the programs you access most often. System cache files are created by the built-in Mac OS X system services that run your Mac and in contrast to application cache, they have nothing to do with the user. They are integral to the normal functioning of your Mac and the clearing of system cache is not recommended manually except if you are very careful or trying to fix a problem.

Caches store information that Mac system or applications need to quickly launch service. Generally, you may not notice this part of data in your MacBook Air until you need to delete unneeded files to get more space or clear cache to fix software problems. If you have difficulty finding caches and identifying the safe caches to delete on your MacBook Air, this tutorial will show you two ways to access and delete cache data.

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How to Access Caches on MacBook Air?

Since Mac OS 10.7 Lion, ~/Library directory, which saves files(including caches) for apps to run, is hidden in Mac system. So it needs a little work to access the caches manually. Here are a few ways.

1. Use 'Go to the Folder'

Press Command + Shift + G buttons to bring out 'Go to the Folder' window. Then type in ~/Library and hit Go. The ~/Library directory will come up.

2. From Go Menu

Open Go menu and press Option button, the hidden Library directory will show in the menu. After you have accessed Library directory for several times, it will begin to appear in the 'Recent Folders' menu for easy access.

3. Use Open Command via Terminal

Go to Finder > Go > Utilites and open Terminal application. Type 'open ~/Library/' to open the Library directory.

How to Delete Caches on MacBook Air?

After you have found the caches folder, you can then delete the caches manually. However, not all caches are safe to delete since some applications save important files on their caches folders. And with so many folders on ~/Library/Caches, users tend to mistakenly delete useful files. That's why you need a Mac cleaner to help you.

FonePaw MacMasteris a cleaner that can simplify the process to clear caches. Not only can the program scan out caches in one click, but also it classifies caches into four categories: application caches and sytem caches so that you can better identity the safe files to delete.

Download MacMaster with clicking the button and see how easy it is to access and delete caches with the program.

Step 1. Launch FonePaw MacMaster. On the main window, you can see the files that the program can clean: System Junk, Photo Cache, Mail Trash, iTunes Junk, and large & old files. You can click Scan button in this step or move to System Junk and begin to scan.

Step 2. The program will scan out the caches files and display them in different categories. Tick App Cache and System Cache on the list to check whether they should be removed or not.

Step 3. Select the unneeded caches and click Clean to delete the caches. If they are gone, there is Zero KB data in that category.

Now you can have more space on your MacBook Air. To free up even more space, you can use MacMaster to delete old media files, large files, and old files.

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Where Is Library Cache On A Mac Download

Securely clean up the junk files, big files, unneeded files on your Mac to speed it up.
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Delete caches and save disk space | 17 comments | Create New Account
Click here to return to the 'Delete caches and save disk space' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
I've been a fan of the free JDiskReport for finding files and folders sitting there taking up space.

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zs

For an Intel equivalent of the disk space usage, try Disk Inventory, also free.
Also, to skip the typing everytime & for a graphical interface, these options are available in both maintenance tools of Onyx and iTweax.
The heavier-duty Onyx actually doesn't indicate the amount used by the Cache, which the light-weight iTweax does.

I recently recovered 5 gigs of hard drive space using Tiger Cache Cleaner. My iBook also starts up and runs noticeably faster now.

$ du -k ~/Library/Caches/ | sort -n
Great for spotting where that space is going
(you may need to sudo it)
$ sudo -k ~/Library/Caches/ | sort -n > du_cache.txt
to get a text file

I tried this:

Safari Cache Location


Doesn't work...

Where Is Library Cache On A Mac Free

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Father of Jeremy Logan

I meant to add, that I want to add something like this to my ~/.bashrc:

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Father of Jeremy Logan

just use a . (ie. period) in place of pwd... and no quotes. FYI: in unix the . stands for the current directory and a .. stands for the parent directory.

It's easier than that!
du -k | sort -n
du defaults to the present directory

A good start to analyse your file system is WhatSize, an all-mac program, universal binary, small, fast and free.
(Comparable to TreeSize on Win-Systems)
-- brf

Where Is Library Cache On A Mac Drive

AppleJack, among other things, will clean both system and user caches, as well as feed the pets and repair your permissions. Welll, maybe not the pets thing, but it is a lovely program.

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Adam C.

Where Is Library Cache On A Mac

I'm not sure if this hint has been posted before but if you get info on each application file there are installed language options. I went through all of my apps and deleted all of them except english. Most times this will halve the size of the app. Apple is notorious for installing 12 different languages for each app. I believe there is an apple script that does this automatically too.

Just be careful about deleting some application localizations. Some applications may have dependencies to those localizations. Some time ago, I remember a problem when someone tried to delete localizations, and they ended up having to reinstall that application.

Yep, certain apps can mysteriously misbehave after you've deleted their language localization files. And Apple software updates can reinstall ones you've deleted so it's not necessarily a one-time removal routine.
I don't see any reason to risk removing those files unless reclaiming disk space is a necessity and there are no safer alternatives.

I can recommend Monolingual (monolingual.sourceforge.net), a neat little software that does just that - removes language resources you don't want/need. I've been using it for a couple of years now without problems (making sure never to remove any of the English varieties (my system language).
Anders

Just for reference, I will reiterate what has already been said about the long-term importance (or lack there of) of files in the ~/Library/Caches directory.
Recently I discovered a bug in an application (the producer of said application was 'some kind of fruit company' who shall remain nameless), and the top level tech that I was working with confirmed that its no big deal to delete the contents of the ~/Library/Caches directory.
I'm not advocating that you empty the directory and then lock the folder so that it can never be populated, nor am I advocating that you empty the directory at all. I'm simply stating that you can empty the directory and its not a big deal.
If your Caches folder is out of control, then you should think about some sort of cleaning.
For comparison purposes, here are the current sizes for my (Mac OS X created) Caches folders:
/Library/Caches
24.7 MB
/System/Library/Caches
11.6 MB
/private/var/root/Library/Caches
16 KB
~/Library/Caches
80.2 MB
The oldest directory within the ~/Library/Caches directory was modified Apr 4 2006.

I'd be cautious deleting ~/Library/Caches/Metadata because it contains Spotlight proxy files used by iCal, Safari, and other apps. Something will eventually trigger those files to be regenerated but before that happens Spotlight searching may be temporarily crippled. I discovered that awhile ago with Safari bookmarks and eventually deleted and restored the Bookmarks.plist file to force proxy files to be rebuilt after other methods had failed to do it.

First, a true confession: Until very recently (i.e. today) I didn't know about the need to periodically delete the cache and as a result, mine was gigantic.
I deleted the cache by dragging it into the trash and then emptying the trash. Then I told the computer to restart. I understand it takes awhile to rebuild the cache, but I'm not sure what 'awhile' means. It's been almost 2 hours now and I'm wondering if that's normal for the (gulp) years worth of stuff that was stored in my cache. How many hours should I let this continue before taking some other action?
Thanks for your help.