How I recovered 30+G from my Mac

Introduction

This guide is for web & mobile developers who are facing disk space issues using Mac.

Steps

1. Use either npm or yarn. Both of them cache stuff and using both of them would bloat the system.

2. If you are using IntelliJ products, they cache a lot of stuff for easier access. You need to periodically delete the cache.

   File > Invalidate cache

3. Use products like “Clean my Mac” to free up space.

4. While cleaning the cache directory under ~/Library/Caches/ you need to delete the files while keeping the folder structure. Use the following command

   find ./ -type f -exec rm {} +

5. Remove yarn/npm cache. Remove the cache which you do not use primarily. I will stop using yarn

   yarn cache clean

6. Remove cocoa pods cache

   pod cache clean --all

7. Remove xcode derived data. I freed up about 6G from this.

   rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData

8. Remove intellij cache

   rm -rf /Users/bisvarup.m/Library/Caches/JetBrains

   
   
   

I have also started to use open-source software called iGlance to track my system metrics. I am able to view the following metrics with this.

1. Disk space usage
2. System temperature
3. Network stats
4. Disk RPM