Would It Be Advisable or Indeed Necessary To Delete the Cache In Mac OS ? ?

Comments: 7 Responses to “Would It Be Advisable or Indeed Necessary To Delete the Cache In Mac OS ? ?”

Gary Rosenzweig

11 years ago

Which cache? Many applications use something called a cache, and the system uses many caches as well. You probably mean you Safari browser cache, right?
The answer is no. Let your browser manage its cache. A cache is a way for your browser to speed up downloads by not downloading something again and again. Web sites today are smart and tell your browser when something (an image, piece of text, etc) is something that is static (never changes) or changes on a regular basis. Your browser uses this to cache things to speed up browsing and minimize your use of bandwidth.
Deleting your cache simply means that for a short time your browser will need to download every little thing you see, as it won't have it in the cache. So your web surfing will be slower.
In the past web sites and browsers weren't as smart, and occasionally problems would occur when a user would have old items in the cache but the web site had newer items on the server. But that is rarely the case now.
So don't worry about it and just use your browser and surf the web. No need for us to manually manage our browser caches.

Simon

11 years ago

Yes to Clarify, I was actually talking about System Cache (I guess) and not a web browser Cache such as Safari

Gary Rosenzweig

11 years ago

It is even more try of a System cache. Let OS X handle those. No need to ever touch them.

Simon

11 years ago

Although thankyou for explaining the mechanics behind browser caches :)

Simon

11 years ago

OK fine, thanks

Carolyn

11 years ago

My question regards cookies, whether to go in a delete them from time to time or is this the same as a cache in browser? Just leave it alone.
I am unclear regarding cookies.
Thanks,
Carolyn

Gary Rosenzweig

11 years ago

Short: Leave them alone.
See: http://macmost.com/browser-cookies.html