Is it safe to delete ~/Library/Caches on Mac?

Mostly, yes. Caches are files apps keep so things load faster, and apps rebuild them. But a few rules keep it from going wrong.

The short answer

Clearing an app's folder inside ~/Library/Caches is safe: the app rebuilds what it needs. The cost is speed, not data. The next launch or page load can be slower, and offline content may download again. macOS treats this folder as something apps must be able to lose, so apps aren't supposed to keep anything there that they can't recreate.

Rules that keep it safe

• Quit the app first. Clearing a cache while its app is running can confuse it until it restarts.
• Clear the folders inside, not the Caches folder itself.
• Leave folders that start with com.apple. alone. Those belong to macOS and Apple's own apps, and macOS clears them itself when space runs low.
• Leave /Library/Caches (without the ~) alone. That's the system-wide one, shared by every user.
• Go after the big ones, not all of them. Most of the space is usually in a handful of folders. Clearing hundreds of tiny ones gains almost nothing.

How to clear a cache

From Finder

• Quit the app whose cache you want to clear.
• In Finder, choose Go › Go to Folder… and enter ~/Library/Caches.
• Choose View › Show View Options, turn on Calculate all sizes, and sort by Size.
• Move the folders of the apps you picked to the Trash, then empty the Trash.

From the app itself

Browsers, Spotify, Slack, Xcode and many other apps have a clear-cache option in their own settings. That's always the cleanest way, because the app knows exactly what it can lose.

Developer caches

Some folders in Caches belong to developer tools: Homebrew, Yarn, pip, CocoaPods, Playwright, Gradle and others. They're safe to clear too. The tool downloads packages again the next time a project needs them, so the next install is slower and needs a network connection. Most also have their own clean command, such as brew cleanup or npm cache clean --force. For the caches outside this folder, see ~/.npm and ~/.cache.

Why it comes back

Caches grow back because apps keep using them, and that's fine. Clearing them is a one-off way to get space back when you need it, not something to do every week.

How Macaroom handles it

Macaroom lists each app's cache with its size, marks it Rebuildable, and won't clear a cache while its app is running. Folders that belong to macOS are marked Managed by macOS and can't be selected. Anything you clear goes to the Trash first, so you can put it back.

Related guides

• What is System Data on Mac?
• Is it safe to delete Xcode DerivedData?