Why I Built Cache Out, a macOS App for Clearing Browser Caches

If you’ve read along for any amount of time, you may or may not know that I once developed a Mac application named Yasu (short for “Yet another system utility) that was pretty popular back in the day when Mac OS needed a utility to clean the cruft that built up over time.

I turned that application over to another developer back in 2017 (nearly 10 years ago now!), and he never did anything with it. I may have to resurrect it again, but that’s a whole different story. Maybe more on it at a later date.

Anyway, one of the nice features of Yasu was the ability to remove the cache, browsing history, download history, favicons and cookies for the web browsers installed on your system all at once.

In the web development work I do, I often want to clear these files from the browsers I test with in order to start fresh. Just like everyone else, I find having to go into the settings for each browser to accomplish this a major pain.

This is what led me to create my new Mac app, Cache Out. Just like Yasu, it clears all of the files in one go, but it lets you select which browsers you want to do it for, rather than performing a nuclear purge. It’s also smart enough to know exactly what supported browsers you have installed on your computer.

Cache Out works for all of the browsers with at least 1% marketshare – plus Orion because I use it myself. I have plans to add support for other lesser known browsers too like Helium, Wavebox, Openin, Velja, and Anybox soon.

Cache Out is a free donationware app because I believe in giving back to the Mac community.

A lot of people don’t realize it, but there are significant out of pocket costs when it comes to developing applications for the Mac. If a developer offers their app freely, but asks for donations, you should consider donating something to them. Not only does it make them feel appreciated, it helps offset the developer membership that’s needed to publish apps.

This is in no way a plea for Cache Out donations. I’m at a place in life where I don’t need them – though I do appreciate them when I get them. I’m just asking that you consider supporting the hard work of developers if you’re in a position to.

It’s been fun to learn SwiftUI with this project. I’m looking forward to developing other apps that scratch my own needs now. And that, dear reader, is the reason I created Cache Out. Happy to hear feedback or take feature requests.