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Hamid Haghdoost
Hamid Haghdoost

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How I Freed Up Tons of Storage on My Mac

#npm #php #node #docker

My Mac was almost full. It said that “Documents” used 39 GB, but I didn’t know what was taking so much space. As a software developer, I have tools like npm, Docker, and Homebrew that keep files to work faster. These files can get very big. Here’s how I fixed it.

Step 1: Look at Documents

I checked my Documents folder in Finder, but the files there were much smaller than 39 GB. Then I used Terminal:

du -sh ~/Documents/* | sort -h
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This shows the size of each file and folder. Most were small. So the big files were hidden in caches and tools.

Step 2: Clear developer tool caches

  1. npm (Node.js) 
du -sh ~/.npm
npm cache clean --force
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This freed 3.5 GB.

  1. Docker 
docker system df
docker builder prune
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My Docker cache alone was 19 GB!

  1. Homebrew 
du -sh ~/Library/Caches/Homebrew
brew cleanup
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This cleared hundreds of MBs.

  1. VSCode 
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Code/Cache/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Code/CachedData/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Code/User/workspaceStorage/*
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This freed about 5 GB.

Step 3: Remove old tools you don’t use

I had old versions of PHP and some apps I didn’t use. I removed them:

brew uninstall php@7.1 php@7.4 php@8.0
brew uninstall --cask fig
brew uninstall nginx
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Step 4: Check other caches

Other tools also store caches:

  • Python pip: ~/.cache/pip
  • Go modules: ~/go/pkg/mod/cache
  • iCloud: ~/Library/Mobile Documents

You can check their size with:

du -sh <folder>
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Step 5: Keep it clean

I now run these commands every few weeks:

npm cache clean --force
docker builder prune
brew cleanup
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/*
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This keeps my Mac from filling up again.

Lessons learned

  • Most big storage is hidden in caches, not in Documents.
  • Tools like Docker, npm, Homebrew, and VSCode can use lots of GB.
  • Cleaning regularly can free 20–40 GB.
  • Terminal commands like du -sh and docker system df help find big files.

With these steps, my Mac now has plenty of space and runs better.

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