How to free up disk space on a developer Mac

See where the space went

df -h /
du -sh ~/Library/Developer ~/Library/Caches ~/.npm ~/.cache 2>/dev/null
du -sh ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker 2>/dev/null

Then the biggest folders in your home directory:

du -sh ~/* ~/.[!.]* 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tail -20

Work down the list below in order of size. Each item is rebuildable; the cost is a slower next build or a re-download.

node_modules in old projects

Every JavaScript project carries its own copy. Find them, with sizes, in your code folder:

find ~/code -name node_modules -type d -prune -exec du -sh {} + 2>/dev/null | sort -h

Change ~/code to wherever your projects live. Delete the ones for projects you aren’t working on:

rm -rf ~/code/old-project/node_modules

npm install (or pnpm install) brings them back. To do it interactively, npx npkill lists them and deletes with a keypress.

Xcode

Quit Xcode first. Then:

# Build output and indexes. Rebuilt on next build.
rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData

# Simulators for runtimes you no longer have installed.
xcrun simctl delete unavailable

# Simulator runtimes: list them, then delete old ones by identifier.
xcrun simctl runtime list
xcrun simctl runtime delete <identifier>

# Debug symbols for old iOS versions, re-created when you connect a device.
rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/"iOS DeviceSupport"/*

# Simulator caches.
rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Caches/*

Be careful with ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives. Archives hold the debug symbols (dSYMs) for builds you shipped. Delete old ones from Xcode’s Window › Organizer only if you don’t need to symbolicate crash reports from those versions.

Docker

Check what Docker is holding first:

docker system df

Then remove what you don’t need, from least to most destructive:

docker builder prune        # build cache
docker image prune -a       # images not used by any container
docker container prune      # stopped containers
docker system prune         # stopped containers, unused networks, dangling images, build cache
docker volume prune         # unused anonymous volumes

Volumes hold data. A database volume is your local database. docker volume prune only removes anonymous volumes by default; adding --all also removes unused named volumes, which is where most local databases live. Check docker volume ls before using it.

Docker Desktop stores everything in one disk image file:

ls -lsh ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/vms/0/data/Docker.raw

It’s a sparse file: the first number from ls -s is the space it actually uses, which can be much less than its listed size. Pruning should free host space within a short time, but if it doesn’t shrink, you can set a lower disk usage limit in Docker Desktop’s Settings › Resources, or use Troubleshoot › Clean / Purge data to reset it completely, which deletes all images, containers and volumes. Don’t delete or move Docker.raw by hand.

OrbStack and Colima keep their data in their own folders; use docker system prune the same way, or their own reset options.

Homebrew

brew cleanup -n          # dry run: what would be removed
brew cleanup --prune=all # remove old versions and all cached downloads

Homebrew’s download cache lives at $(brew --cache). Check its size with du -sh "$(brew --cache)".

Package manager caches

npm cache clean --force          # ~/.npm
pnpm store prune                 # removes packages no project references
yarn cache clean                 # Yarn 1
yarn cache clean --all           # Yarn 2 and later
pip cache purge                  # Python
go clean -modcache               # Go modules

pnpm’s store is shared between projects, so pruning it rarely hurts. npm and Yarn caches just mean the next install downloads again.

Other big ones worth checking: ~/.gradle/caches, ~/.cargo/registry, ~/.cache/huggingface and Ollama models in ~/.ollama/models (remove a model with ollama rm <name>).

~/Library/Caches

du -sh ~/Library/Caches/* 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tail -15

Quit the app that owns a folder, then delete that folder. Browsers, Spotify, Slack and JetBrains IDEs are usually the largest. Don’t delete ~/Library/Caches itself, and leave anything under /System alone.

Don’t forget

• Trash. Nothing is freed until you empty it.
• Time Machine local snapshots count as System Data. tmutil listlocalsnapshots / lists them; macOS removes them automatically as space runs low.
• Leftover processes. A dev server still running from a deleted folder can keep files open. Find orphaned ones in find orphaned node processes.

Doing this with Stat Space

Stat Space’s Disk tab has a “Free up space” scan for rebuildable developer data: Xcode DerivedData, device support, simulator caches, package manager caches, node_modules in projects unchanged for 30 days, and Docker build cache. It shows the size of each and deletes only what you confirm. A separate on-demand scan lists the largest folders in your home directory. Both are free, and nothing is scanned until you ask.