guides
Get your disk space back from old projects.
What each dependency and build folder is, whether it's safe to delete, and how to do it yourself in the terminal, with or without Sweep. Every command was checked on a real Mac.
Free up space from your projects
How to delete node_modules
Yes, deleting node_modules is safe: npm, pnpm, yarn or bun reinstall it from your lockfile. Here is how to delete one, how to delete every one under a folder, and what to check first.
Find all node_modules and their sizes
One find command lists every node_modules folder under a folder, and du sorts them by size. Plus the React Native trap that makes the list look twice as long as it is.
Shrink the npm, pnpm, yarn and bun caches
npm keeps a copy of every package it ever downloaded. npm cache verify removed 21.5 GB of unused data on our Mac without touching a single needed package. Here is that, and the pnpm, yarn and bun equivalents.
Clean old React Native projects
A React Native project can hold 5 to 15 GB of rebuildable folders: node_modules, ios/Pods, android/app/build, .cxx and Gradle caches. What each one is and how to get it back.
Clean all your Flutter projects
flutter clean deletes a project's build and .dart_tool folders, but not ios/Pods or Android's Gradle cache. How to run it across every Flutter project, and what else is safe to delete.
Delete old .venv and Rust target folders
Virtual environments and Rust target folders are rebuildable and often huge. How to tell a real venv from a folder that just happens to be named env, and the commands to clean and restore both.