Mac Terminal Commands for Cleanup (the Useful Ones)

The Terminal can clean things the GUI can’t reach — log files in /private/var, Time Machine local snapshots, Docker volumes, Xcode caches with predictable paths. But there’s a real safety gap between “useful command” and “command that bricks your Mac.” This list sticks to commands that are safe, well-documented, and actually do something the GUI can’t.

Before anything else

Open Terminal (Applications, Utilities, Terminal, or Cmd-Space then “terminal”). Every command below is run as your normal user. Anything that needs sudo will be flagged. The rule: never paste a sudo command from the internet without reading what it does first.

If you want a paper trail, type script ~/Desktop/cleanup-log.txt first. Everything you do gets logged to that file until you type exit.

Free up disk space immediately

du -sh ~/Downloads ~/Desktop ~/Movies

Tells you the size of each folder. Replace with any folder you want to measure.

du -sh ~/Library/Caches/* | sort -h

Lists every cache subfolder by size, smallest to largest. Look at the bottom — that’s your worst offender.

ls -lhS ~/Downloads | head -20

Top 20 largest files in Downloads. The S flag sorts by size. Now you can decide what to delete with rm.

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Time Machine local snapshots

macOS keeps Time Machine snapshots on your local drive even when your backup disk isn’t connected. They show as “Purgeable” space but consume real bytes.

tmutil listlocalsnapshots /

Lists every local snapshot. Each one looks like com.apple.TimeMachine.2025-09-20-130045.local.

tmutil deletelocalsnapshots 2025-09-20-130045

Deletes a specific one. Don’t delete the most recent — it’s actively used by Time Machine.

To free a chunk of space at once:

sudo tmutil thinlocalsnapshots / 50000000000 4

That tells macOS to free up to 50 GB of snapshots aggressively. Safe — it only removes snapshots, not your data.

Xcode garbage

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

DerivedData is build cache. Safe to delete entirely. Xcode rebuilds it on next compile. Reclaims 30-100 GB on most developer machines.

rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives/*

Old app archives. Only delete if you’ve already submitted these builds and don’t need them for symbolication.

xcrun simctl delete unavailable

Removes simulator devices for SDKs you no longer have installed. Reclaims 10-30 GB.

xcrun simctl --set previews delete all

Removes the SwiftUI Preview simulator data. Often hidden but can be 10+ GB.

Docker

docker system prune -a --volumes

Deletes unused images, containers, and volumes. Often reclaims 30-80 GB. Run it monthly if you Docker daily.

docker volume prune

Just volumes. Less aggressive.

Browser caches

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.brave.Browser/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/company.thebrowser.Browser/*

Quit the browser first. These commands are safe — caches regenerate.

The unsafe version that you’ll see online: rm -rf ~/Library/Safari/*. Don’t. That deletes your bookmarks and history.

System logs

sudo rm -rf /private/var/log/*.log
sudo rm -rf /private/var/log/asl/*.asl

Old system logs. Safe to delete. macOS regenerates the structure on next boot. Reclaims 1-5 GB on Macs that have been running for a year+.

sudo log erase --all

Wipes the unified log database. Modern macOS logs go through this system, not files.

User caches you can clear

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/*

Wipes every user-level cache. Apps regenerate what they need. Safe but you’ll see a brief slowdown for the first few minutes after as caches rebuild.

The granular version, by app:

rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.spotify.client/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.adobe.*/Cache/*

Mail

sqlite3 ~/Library/Mail/V10/MailData/Envelope\ Index 'VACUUM;'

Compacts the Mail database. The V10 may be V9 or V11 depending on your macOS version — ls ~/Library/Mail/ shows the current one.

Quit Mail first. Vacuuming a live database corrupts it.

iOS device backups

ls -lh ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup/

Shows iPhone/iPad backups. Each can be 50-200 GB. Delete old ones:

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync/Backup/00008101-001A1234567890123456

Use the actual folder name from the ls output. Make sure it’s not your current device — check the modification date.

Find big files anywhere

find ~/ -type f -size +500M 2>/dev/null

Lists every file larger than 500 MB in your home folder. The 2>/dev/null hides permission-denied errors for unreadable folders. Replace 500M with 1G for files over a gigabyte.

find ~/ -type f -size +500M -mtime +180 2>/dev/null

Same, but only files older than 180 days — the ones you’ve forgotten about.

Hidden ds_store files

find ~/ -name ".DS_Store" -delete 2>/dev/null

Removes Finder’s per-folder metadata files. macOS regenerates them. Useful before sharing folders with non-Mac users or zipping a project.

To stop them appearing on network drives:

defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool true

Spotlight reindex

sudo mdutil -E /

Erases the Spotlight index for the boot volume and rebuilds it. Useful when search returns no results or stale results.

sudo mdutil -i off /
sudo mdutil -i on /

Disables and re-enables indexing. Same effect as the Spotlight Privacy folder trick in System Settings, but faster.

Purge inactive memory

sudo purge

Forces macOS to flush inactive memory caches. Almost never necessary on Apple silicon — the memory manager handles it well. On older Intel Macs that show high “memory pressure,” it can give a temporary boost.

Empty Trash from the command line

rm -rf ~/.Trash/*

Faster than the Finder dialog when there are tens of thousands of files. The Finder UI struggles with large Trash contents.

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Things NOT to run

A short list of commands you’ll see online that are bad ideas:

• sudo rm -rf / — obvious. Wipes everything
• rm -rf ~ — wipes your home folder
• sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow — locks you out
• Anything piping curl directly into sh. Read what you’re running first
• sudo rm -rf /private/var/folders/* — breaks running apps; macOS regenerates these but only after a restart

The pattern: if you don’t know what a command does, run it through man <command> first. If you can’t find a man page, search for the exact command on Apple’s developer documentation or a known Mac admin site, never random pastebins.

When Terminal cleanup makes sense

Terminal is best for:

• Commands the GUI doesn’t expose (Time Machine snapshots, Spotlight reindex, Docker prune)
• Bulk operations across many files
• Repeatable scripts — write once, run quarterly

It’s worse than a GUI cleaner for:

• Knowing what’s safe to delete in cache folders you’ve never seen
• Mapping caches to apps (was com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap Slack? Yes. Was com.adobe.headlights.LogTransport2? Also Adobe, but obscure)
• Avoiding deletion of files an app actively needs

A maintenance app that knows the Mac filesystem catches the long tail of caches you wouldn’t think to look for. The Terminal commands above are the half-dozen that are still worth doing manually because they’re either too aggressive (Time Machine snapshots) or too specialized (Xcode DerivedData) for general-purpose tools.