A designer's Mac fills with versions, caches and fonts nobody chose
Design tools keep every version locally, cache aggressively and install fonts you never asked for. Where each lives and what is safe.
Design work generates far more data than the files you open. Every tool keeps local versions, most keep an aggressive cache so that opening a file feels instant, and the cloud ones keep both while also syncing. None of it is visible from the documents themselves.
Where a designer's disk goes
| Source | Where it lives | Safe to clear |
|---|---|---|
| Figma desktop cache | ~/Library/Application Support/Figma | Yes, redownloads |
| Adobe media and disk caches | ~/Library/Caches/Adobe | Yes, rebuilt |
| Creative Cloud synced files | ~/Creative Cloud Files | Only via the cloud, carefully |
| Sketch and local versions | Beside the document, plus autosave | Old versions only |
| Fonts, activated and installed | ~/Library/Fonts, /Library/Fonts | Deactivate rather than delete |
| Exports and versions of versions | Wherever you saved them | The largest easy win |
du -sh ~/Library/Application\ Support/Figma ~/Library/Caches/Adobe \
~/Creative\ Cloud\ Files ~/Library/Fonts 2>/dev/null
# Everything large under Caches, which is where design tools live
du -sh ~/Library/Caches/* 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tail -12
# Exported versions of the same work, which is usually the real total
find ~/Documents ~/Desktop -type f \( -name "*.png" -o -name "*.jpg" -o -name "*.pdf" \) \
-size +20M 2>/dev/null -exec du -sh {} \; | sort -h | tail -20The versions problem
Design work produces the same artefact many times: final, final 2, final approved, final approved v3. Each export is a full file, and at twenty megabytes a time a single project can hold several gigabytes of essentially the same image.
- Keep the source file and the last export. Everything between them is reproducible from the source.
- Archive the project rather than the exports, since the source plus the fonts used is a smaller and more useful record.
- Date the folder, not the file. It removes the naming problem that causes the duplication in the first place.
Fonts, which grow quietly
Font managers activate and deactivate rather than install and remove, so a library of thousands can sit on the disk with a handful in use. They are small individually and large together, and a deactivated font still occupies space. The details are in fonts taking up space.
Caches are safe, cloud folders are not
Everything in ~/Library/Caches belonging to a design tool rebuilds itself. A synced folder is different: deleting from ~/Creative Cloud Files removes the file from the cloud as well, and the same is true of any other sync client, which is covered in cloud sync folders.
Per tool detail is in Figma and design tool caches and Adobe applications. If the work is photographic as well, photo editor caches is usually the larger number of the two.
Common questions
Why is my Mac full of design files I cannot find?
Because most of it is not the documents. Tool caches, local version history, synced cloud folders and repeated exports of the same artwork occupy far more than the source files do.
Is it safe to delete the Figma or Adobe cache?
Yes. Both rebuild on demand, at the cost of a slower first open. They live in ~/Library/Application Support/Figma and ~/Library/Caches/Adobe.
Do deactivated fonts still take up space?
Yes. A font manager activates and deactivates rather than installing and removing, so a large library occupies its full size whether or not the fonts are in use.
What should I keep when archiving a design project?
The source file and the fonts it uses, plus the final approved export. Intermediate exports are reproducible from the source and are usually the bulk of the folder.