How to clear cache on an old Mac
Despite often being told to clear it, cache is actually important to helping our Mac load apps and websites faster. Cache is essentially temporary data that is stored so it doesn’t have to be downloaded each and every time we do repetitive tasks. The issue is, however, many tasks we never do again (i.e. visit a website just once). So, cache can quickly become a burden and clog up our mac, making the device slower and also hoards disk space.
As shown in this post, clearing cache can be done automatically using software. However, we are going to cover the manual ways of clearing cache in this article.
Clearing system and app cache
To clear your Mac’s system cache, head to Finder, select Go, and press Go to Folder. From here, enter “~/Library/Caches” and select Go. You should now be presented with a bunch of cache folders, going inside each folder and deleting anything you do not want. You can also sort the folders by Date Modified to see what was cached ages ago, which may indicate that you may no longer need it. It’s particularly important to head into the apps that you do not often use to delete their cache.
You can delete the cache by dragging it to the Trash, but remember to frequently empty your Trash too.
Clearing browser cache
Next up is clearing your browser cache, which is certainly taking up a lot of storage. The issue here is that you may use several browsers, so you’ll have to repeat this process for each one – but each one is slightly different.
Clearing browser cache is also important to hiding your online activity and protecting your privacy.
Safari
Open up Safari and head to the menu bar. Press Safari (top left) and then select Preferences. Under the Advanced tab (on the far right) you will find a check box towards the bottom titled “Show Develop menu in menu bar”. Check this box and then head to the newly appeared Develop tab in the menu.
Under Develop, select Empty Caches.
Chrome
Open up Chrome and press the menu button (three dots in the top right). Under History, select History again. Once the History page appears (a Cmd + Y is the shortcut for future reference), press Clear Browsing Data from the left sidebar. A new window will appear, and you will have the selection of three different things you want to delete.
You don’t have to actually clear your browsing history, you can uncheck this box if you wish. The bottom box is the most relevant for cache, but it may also be worth clearing Cookies too. The default time range is usually Last Hour, so change this to a longer time frame. Finally, press the Clear Data button.
Firefox
The process for Firefox is very similar to Chrome. Open up Firefox, press History under the menu, and click Clear Recent History. Uncheck anything you want unchecked, change the time range (i.e. Everything), and press OK.
