The Fastest Ways to Clear Xcode Caches on a Mac

August 2026 · 5 min read · Dev Box Cleaner

Everyone knows how to clear DerivedData. The problem isn't knowing — it's that the folder rebuilds itself every single day, and you only remember it exists when the disk is already full. Here are three ways to do it, ordered by how little effort they take, plus an honest answer to "how often should I actually bother?"

1. Xcode's own Clean Build Folder

Product → Clean Build Folder (⇧⌘K) is the one most people reach for. It's useful, but narrower than you think: it clears the build products of the current scheme only. The index store, module caches and every other project's folder stay untouched.

Good for "my build is behaving weirdly". Useless for "my disk is full".

2. Terminal aliases

If you live in a terminal, put these in your ~/.zshrc once:

alias dd-size='du -sh ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData'
alias dd-clean='rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData'
alias sim-clean='xcrun simctl delete unavailable'
alias arch-size='du -sh ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Archives'

Then dd-size before, dd-clean when the number offends you.

⚠️ Quit Xcode before dd-clean. If it's running, it will immediately start re-creating index files for open projects, and deleting them mid-write occasionally confuses the build system.

The catch with aliases: they only clear what you told them to. Every few months some new cache directory appears — Swift Package Manager's, a new simulator runtime path — and your alias doesn't know about it.

3. A menu bar shortcut

The reason DerivedData reaches 60 GB isn't that clearing it is hard. It's that nothing reminds you. A cleanup that requires you to remember won't happen; one that shows you the number while you work will.

That's why Dev Box Cleaner has a menu bar widget: it keeps live sizes for the usual suspects — DerivedData, Archives, iOS DeviceSupport, simulator caches, npm, Yarn, CocoaPods and Homebrew caches, plus your Trash — and each row has a two-step Clean button. No app window, no terminal, no context switch. There's also a folder icon on every row if you want to look inside before deleting.

How often is actually worth it?

Cleaning too often costs you build time; too rarely costs you disk. A realistic cadence:

One nuance worth repeating: caches exist to make things fast. Clearing them isn't free — the next build is slower, the next npm install re-downloads. Clear when you need space, not as a ritual.

What not to delete

• Archives of shipped builds — their dSYMs symbolicate crash reports from real users. Details in this post.
• Anything under /System or /Library that asks for an admin password — if macOS is protecting it, it's not yours to clean.
• Simulator runtimes you still test against — deleting them means a multi-GB re-download later.