[SOLVED] Clearing ~/.cache

Roken · 2020-06-10 07:50:31

Is it safe to clear out the .cache folder in /home?

Mine currently occupies 24.4GB, that would be better used otherwise.

For info, I have done nothing special with my system to interfere with it.

Last edited by Roken (2020-06-11 05:45:27)

kilix · 2020-06-10 08:41:03

well, you can have e.g. mails stored in there.
You should probably check what's really inside, use for example du -h

seth · 2020-06-10 10:09:42

A cache is a cache - even if there're mails in there, they should™ only be cached versions of mails that are actually stored somewhere else (eg. some server)

But since a cache is a cache, deleting it stands a high chance of re-building it again - and fast.
Therefore it's indeed reasonable to check
a) what takes the most space
b) the timestamps on files (deleting cruft is good, but deleting stuff that's gonna be rebuild w/ the next login will probably only slow down the next login)

Likely offender are browser caches and image thumbnails.

philo · 2020-06-10 10:14:18

This may help in answering your question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comm … ove_cache/

It also suggest to first just rename it and see if it hurts anything.

Last edited by philo (2020-06-10 10:17:15)

Roken · 2020-06-10 14:14:29

Thank you.

@philo, I had, in fact, seen the Reddit post, but I'm more likely to trust here than Reddit.

Emails are stored on an NFS drive, so definitley no emails of any import in the cache.

I guess I'll go with the rename and see what happens. I'd be surprised to see 24.4GB rebuilt quickly.

judd1 · 2020-06-10 21:51:54

sudo paccache -d

→ To verify your cache

sudo paccache -rk0 o -rk1 ...

→to completely remove your cache -rk0
→to leave a version of packages -rk1

Last edited by judd1 (2020-06-10 21:52:53)

Slithery · 2020-06-10 22:06:04

judd1 wrote:

sudo paccache -d
→ To verify your cache
sudo paccache -rk0 o -rk1 ...
→to completely remove your cache -rk0
→to leave a version of packages -rk1

All of which has nothing to do with the contents of ~/.cache.

graysky · 2020-06-10 22:10:41

If you have enough RAM, I recommend that you mount ~/.cache to tmpfs so it is cleared on a reboot (or you can symlink it to a tmpfs partition). I do it that way, from /etc/fstab:

tmpfs /scratch  tmpfs size=29G,nodev,lazytime  0 0

Trilby · 2020-06-10 23:35:09

Putting ~/.cache in RAM is pretty wasteful of both bandwidth and RAM and really defeats the purpose of cached data. The whole point of ~/.cache is it is downloaded or generated content that will be needed next time a program is run. Putting it in RAM just means all content needs to be regenerated again every time you reboot.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-06-10 23:35:36)

Roken · 2020-06-11 05:45:09

Well, no obviously ill effects after a few hours, and the regenerated .cache is only 1.1GB, so a saving of 23.3GB.

Thank you all. Going to mark as solved.

Arch Linux

#1 2020-06-10 07:50:31

[SOLVED] Clearing ~/.cache

#2 2020-06-10 08:41:03

Re: [SOLVED] Clearing ~/.cache

#3 2020-06-10 10:09:42

Re: [SOLVED] Clearing ~/.cache

#4 2020-06-10 10:14:18

Re: [SOLVED] Clearing ~/.cache

#5 2020-06-10 14:14:29

Re: [SOLVED] Clearing ~/.cache

#6 2020-06-10 21:51:54

Re: [SOLVED] Clearing ~/.cache

#7 2020-06-10 22:06:04

Re: [SOLVED] Clearing ~/.cache

#8 2020-06-10 22:10:41

Re: [SOLVED] Clearing ~/.cache

#9 2020-06-10 23:35:09

Re: [SOLVED] Clearing ~/.cache

#10 2020-06-11 05:45:09

Re: [SOLVED] Clearing ~/.cache

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