Your npm cache is huge: how to shrink the npm, pnpm, yarn and bun caches

Where the caches are

Tool	Cache	Gentle	Empty it
npm	~/.npm/_cacache	npm cache verify	npm cache clean --force
pnpm	run pnpm store path	pnpm store prune	delete the store folder
yarn	~/Library/Caches/Yarn (Yarn 1)	none	yarn cache clean
bun	run bun pm cache in a project	none	bun pm cache rm

npm: verify first

npm cache verify

It reads the cache index, checks the data, and garbage-collects content no index entry uses. Its summary says how much it removed. On the Mac Sweep was built on: Content garbage-collected: 10236 (21525822320 bytes), and all 15,025 indexed packages were kept. Nothing you install later is affected.

If you want it all gone:

npm cache clean --force

Without --force npm only prints a note explaining that, since npm 5, the cache heals itself and clearing it is rarely needed.

pnpm: prune the store

pnpm's store is shared by every project on your Mac, and each project's node_modules hard-links into it. pnpm store prune removes packages that no project uses any more. In pnpm's own words, it "is not harmful and has no side effects on your projects".

yarn and bun

• yarn: yarn cache clean empties the cache. With Yarn 2 and later the cache may live inside each project (.yarn/cache), and is often committed for zero-installs, so check before deleting that one.
• bun: bun pm cache prints the cache folder and bun pm cache rm clears it.

Is it safe?

Yes. A cache is only a copy of what the registry already has. The cost is that the next install of each package downloads it again.