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Mac Clean-Up

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Eventually, your Mac will start to run out of space especially if you have a Macbook Air or entry-level Pro. As a developer over the years node_modules and other detritus can start to accumulate. By their nature, these things can be retrieved if they are actively used or they are often relics from old discarded/complete projects. With this in mind below is a list of some of the commands and things I do to free up some space.

Deleting Rebuildable Elements

For most of the below commands, you will need to go to the root of the folder that you put your code repos in.

Node.js

Delete node_modules

  • find . -type d -name "node_modules" -exec rm -fr {} \;

Delete Npm and Yarn's Cache

  • yarn cache clean
  • npm cache clean

Docker

Be more careful here as containers can be more difficult to get back. In my experience docker containers over time tend to chew up a fortune of space and most of the containers accumulated are not currently used by any projects I am on:

  • docker system prune -a
  • docker run --rm -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v /etc:/etc spotify/docker-gc

The Nuclear Option

Android

Android SDK

  • rm -fr ~/Library/Android/sdk/

Java

  • find . -type d -name "target" -exec rm -fr {} \;

Homebrew

  • Cache: rm -rf brew --cache
  • Cleanup: brew cleanup
    • This can sometimes cause issues with brew doctor it gives an error similar to: cannot load such file -- active_support/core_ext/object/blank * To fix this run: brew style. If it is still not fixed run: brew update-reset . This is covered in depth here