How to Clear Spotify's Cache on Mac

Spotify is the worst offender on most Macs I’ve audited. Not because it’s badly built — because the default cache size is essentially unlimited. I’ve seen Spotify caches push 30GB on long-time Premium users who downloaded a few playlists for offline listening five years ago and forgot.

Here’s where Spotify hides everything on macOS, what’s safe to clear, and how to keep it from getting out of hand again.

Where Spotify caches data on Mac

Spotify splits its local data into two main locations:

• ~/Library/Caches/com.spotify.client — temporary cache (album art, scanned tracks, search snapshots)
• ~/Library/Application Support/Spotify/PersistentCache — the big one. This holds streamed audio data and offline downloads.

There’s also ~/Library/Application Support/Spotify/Users/ which contains user-specific data and settings, and ~/Library/Application Support/Spotify/Browser for the embedded web views.

The PersistentCache folder is where 90% of the bloat lives. On a Mac that’s been streaming Spotify daily for a couple years, this folder alone often hits 5–10GB.

Quick way: clear cache from Spotify itself

Spotify has a built-in cache clear, though it’s not aggressive.

1. Open Spotify on your Mac.
2. Click your profile picture in the top right → Settings.
3. Scroll down to Storage.
4. Click Clear cache.

This wipes the streaming cache (PersistentCache contents that aren’t part of an explicit offline download). It does NOT delete your offline-saved playlists or downloads.

You’ll get a confirmation showing how much space was freed. On a heavy user, this is often 3–5GB in one click.

The full manual clear

If the in-app clear isn’t doing enough, or you’ve uninstalled Spotify and the folders are still there, do it manually.

1. Quit Spotify (Cmd+Q).
2. Open Finder, press Cmd+Shift+G.
3. Paste ~/Library/Caches/com.spotify.client and press Enter.
4. Move everything inside to the Trash.
5. Repeat with ~/Library/Application Support/Spotify/PersistentCache.
6. Empty the Trash.
7. Reopen Spotify.

Spotify will rebuild the cache as you stream. If you had songs downloaded for offline listening, you’ll need to re-download them — Spotify treats offline downloads as part of the cache.

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Setting a cache size limit so this doesn’t recur

Spotify defaults to filling up to 10% of your free disk space with cache. On a 1TB Mac with 500GB free, that’s 50GB. Capping it is the single best thing you can do.

1. Open Spotify → Settings.
2. Find Storage in the sidebar (or scroll down).
3. Set Cache size to a reasonable number — 1GB is plenty for most people, 5GB if you have lots of offline downloads.

Spotify will trim the oldest cached audio first when it hits the limit.

What if you’ve uninstalled Spotify but the cache is still there?

Common situation. You drag Spotify to the Trash, but the cache and Application Support folders stick around forever. To clean up after a removed Spotify:

1. Check ~/Library/Caches/com.spotify.client — delete it.
2. Check ~/Library/Application Support/Spotify/ — delete the whole folder.
3. Check ~/Library/Preferences/com.spotify.client.plist — delete it.
4. Check ~/Library/Logs/Spotify — delete the folder.
5. Empty Trash.

That’s typical Mac uninstall residue. Almost every app does this.

Clearing Spotify cache vs. offline downloads

Important distinction:

• Streaming cache is rebuilt automatically as you listen. Clearing it costs you nothing.
• Offline downloads (playlists with the green download arrow) live in the same PersistentCache folder. Clearing the folder removes them, and you’ll need to re-download.

If you depend on offline playlists for travel, run the in-app Settings → Storage → Clear cache option instead of nuking the PersistentCache folder. The in-app version preserves explicit downloads.

Why Spotify’s cache gets so big

Three reasons:

1. Default limits are huge. Spotify caches up to 10% of your free disk by default.
2. High-bitrate streaming. If you have Premium and stream at “Very High” quality, each track caches at ~1MB per minute.
3. Cache doesn’t expire aggressively. Tracks you played once two years ago can still be sitting in PersistentCache.

If you stream 2 hours a day at high quality, that’s 120MB of new cache per day, on top of whatever’s already there.

Clear caches across every app at onceSweep does what 20 manual cache clears do — in 30 seconds. Free for macOS →

When clearing Spotify won’t fix the issue

If Spotify is slow, glitchy, or won’t play tracks, the cache is one suspect — but check these too:

• Outdated app version. Update from the App Store or spotify.com.
• Login token issues. Sign out and back in.
• Corrupted preferences. Delete ~/Library/Preferences/com.spotify.client.plist and relaunch.
• Network problems. Spotify’s CDN sometimes has regional hiccups.

A cache clear is worth trying first because it’s quick and reversible.

How this fits into a broader Mac cleanup

Spotify alone can free 5–10GB. Add Chrome (often 2GB), Slack (1.5GB), Discord (1GB), Microsoft Teams (1GB), and you’re looking at 10–15GB of recoverable space across just five apps.

Manual clearing works. It’s also tedious — different folders, different button locations, different gotchas per app. Sweep walks through every app’s cache directory on your Mac, shows you what’s reclaimable, and handles the lot in one pass. You see the full list before anything is deleted, so nothing surprises you.

For just Spotify, the in-app cache clear plus a sensible size limit is enough. For a Mac with 30+ apps installed, automating saves you from doing this every quarter.

Bottom line

Spotify’s PersistentCache is at ~/Library/Application Support/Spotify/PersistentCache and routinely hits multiple gigabytes. Clear it via Settings → Storage in-app for a safe quick win, or manually if you want to wipe the slate. Set a cache size cap so it doesn’t get out of hand again.

If you’ve got a Mac full of cache-heavy apps, this is just one of a dozen folders worth knowing about.