Is your Mac running low on storage? Are you not able to spot where your memory is being used? The answer to the question is Cache files. Cache is not unique to Mac, pretty much all operating systems, application and even websites use them to enhance the user experience by diminishing loading time. In this article, Learn How to Clear Cache on Mac.
The article will help you clear cookies and caches of Mac System, Browser and temporary files.
Caches are elaborately discussed the next section. Many of you may have heard about caches on the mobile devices or are completely new to this term. Don’t worry, after done reading this article you will know everything about cache on Mac.
How to clear the Mac cache, history, and cookies in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox Safari. Open Safari; In the menu bar (top left of your screen) click History; At the bottom of the menu, choose. So, delete cache files only when great memory fiasco happen. Categories of Cache in Mac. In this section, we shall discuss cache on Mac in more detail, if you are in a hurry then you could skip this section. In Mac OS, the cache data can be sub-categorized into three main types: Browser – Caches generated by browsers are stored.
Contents
- 1 Cache on Mac
How To Clear Memory Cache
Cache on Mac
Every time you use any application on your Mac, some files get stored in your computer. These files are called cache files. They basically contain code or information that is used extensively on information that is common. This is not a new feature and is proven to vastly increase the performance of your Mac. Caches are stored locally on your Mac, but you cannot spot caches file straightaway as it is located inside ~/ Library.
Caches are updated regularly by the applications that you open, thus cache size keeps on increasing. Old cache files are mostly useless to your mac in addition to this the ever increasing pile of cache hogs up Macbook’s memory.
So in the next few sections, we will cover all the different methods on How to clear cache on Mac. Don’t get any wrong idea that cache files slow your Mac or responsible for all the memory crisis. If you delete all the caches from the computer, you will observe poor performance of Mac for some time as there are no cache files available to speed up the loading process. So, delete cache files only when great memory fiasco happen.
Categories of Cache in Mac
In this section, we shall discuss cache on Mac in more detail, if you are in a hurry then you could skip this section. In Mac OS, the cache data can be sub-categorized into three main types:
- Browser – Caches generated by browsers are stored. Browsers generate an awful lot of caches depending on the usage. It apparently makes the page loading faster but consumes too much of memory. More on this in the next section.
- System – As the name suggests, the cache’s data generated byMac Os and other system applications are stored here. A simple rule, never play with system files, although you can use 3rd party applications to delete useless system cache.
- User (including App & DNS) – Lastly, caches generated by all the 3rd party applications eg. Mail, etc including DNS caches i.e when you visit any website its name and other information regarding website get stored in a cache file.
How to Clear Cache on Mac [System Cache]
The section will guide you to clear MacOS System cache and User Cache. To delete Browser cache go to the next section. We will manually delete caches and by the time we are finished more than 60% of cache space will get freed. Yay!
1. Open Finder and select “Go to Folder” in the Go menu (or use shortcut Shift + Cmd + G).
Henry repeating rifle serial numbers. 2. Type in ‘~/Library/Caches’ and press Enter from the keyboard. A long list of folders will appear specific to each application in your computer
Clear Cache Mac Os X
3. Go into each of the folders and delete all the files in them. Don’t go reckless, delete from those folder that you are familier with.
To flush DNS cache manually, open ‘Terminal’ and type ‘ sudo dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder;say cache flushed ‘ and press enter then provide the admin password to delete.
For OS X 10.10.0-10.10.3, use this command instead ‘ sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache;sudo discoveryutil udnsflushcaches;say flushed ‘.
How to Clear Mac Browser cache
Browsers are application but so much caches are generated by them thatsway they deserve a special category. Some experts suggest clearing browser caches for privacy concerns. Although browser cache doesn’t contain personal information, unlike cookies. All the major browsers support clearing cache on website level, it comes in handy when you want to free up some space but do not want your favorite website to load slower.
For Safari browser, click on ‘Safari’ then on ‘preferences’. Select the Advanced tab and enable the ‘Show Develop menu’. Finally, go to Develop located on the menu bar and click on ‘Empty Caches’. Done!
For Firefox browser, select ‘Privacy & Security’ by clicking on the icon located on the top right corner. Then, navigate to ‘Cached web content’ section. Click on ‘Clear Now’ to delete all the caches in Firefox.
For Chrome browser, go to ‘Settings’ then click on Advanced settings. Select “Clear browsing data” and select ‘Cached images and files’ and finally, click on ‘Clear data’.
***Note:- Browsers are updated regularly, settings might get changed but most certainly this guide shall work for a long time to come. ***
Also Read: How to Clear Browser History in Mac
CleanMyMac
If you don’t want to go through any trouble just download CleanMyMac X [Internet Required]. It is the top rated most popular app in this category. It can clear all the 3 types of caches automatically. You don’t need a manual to use this user-friendly application. It is available in both free and paid versions. Screenshot of this application is shared below.
This is how you can delete your cache on Mac easily without any manual work!!
Conclusion
We have provided manual as well as automatic methods on How to Clear Cache on Mac. In our opinion, CleanMyMac is a better option as it reduces effort and time. But again, if you do not want to install any application in your Mac then, use the manual method. Works like a charm!
Although this article is all about deleting cache on Mac OS but, we would advise you to only delete caches when necessary. Browser caches can be deleted without any hesitation, but it will slow down page load time substantially and also consume more data for the first time a page loads.
Stay tuned for more on Mac!
Related Posts:
Removing Temporary files and caches will help you free up space on the hard disk of your MacOS. It also prevents apps from working incorrectly. If you don’t know how to clear caches on your Mac, then this post will teach you how to clear cache on your Mac, iMac, MacBook Pro with the ease.
Here is a detailed explanation of how you can remove Temporary, Log as well as Cache files currently being stored on your Mac. But you should note that the removal might trigger a few apps to create new files when you open them in the next time. Log and Cache apps become bigger day by day and might get corrupted, which could cause system issues, forcing them to enhance your system performance.
How to Delete Log, Temporary and Cache Files on Mac
There are three sets in Caches of MacOS, including The System Cache, Browser Cache, and User Cache. Here’s how to clear cache on your Mac OS and delete all three of them from the system. To do so:
Step 1: Go to Finder Menu, and under ‘Go”, click on “Go to Folder”. You can also press Shift + CMD + G keys instead.
Step 2: Enter the following command in the Go To Folder dialog box: ~/Library/Caches
Step 3: Now, you should create a backup of the files you are going to remove. Although it is only a safety precaution, the process just needs a few minutes and is handy if you mistakenly remove them forever. There is a simple way to make a backup copy that is pressing and holding the Alt key and then drag and drop the whole folder on your desktop space.
Step 4: Now, choose all files from the Cache folder. You can do it by first selecting an item in the Cache Folder, then go back to the “Finder” menu, and select “Select All” in the Edit menu. You can simply press CMD + A keys as well for the same purpose.
Step 5: After you have selected all files, you can then delete them by simply dragging them to the Trash folder from the Dock and then empty the Trash basket from the main Finder menu.
Step 6: Finally, repeat all above steps, but you have to “~/Library/Caches” with: “/Library/Temp”, “/Library/Cookies” or “~/Library/Logs” if you want to delete Log files from your system.
Also see: HOW TO OPEN RAR FILES ON MAC
CleanMyMac 3 – The Great App to Clear Cache on Mac
If the above method makes you difficult when having to navigate the file system of your Mac, you can delete Cache using CleanMyMac 3 app for your computer. It is estimated to be the best Mac cleaning utility with all-in-1 functionality. After installing it, simply follow the below steps to clear Cache.
- Select System Junk.
- Choose “Scan”.
- Click on “Clean”.
- Now, clear temporary files on your Mac
You can also use CleanMyMac 3 for cleaning after the uninstallation to delete redundant, temporary files.
Bonus: You should use App Cleaner after uninstalling apps on your Mac if you want to completely delete the app files such as the backups, used memory and more.