Removing Cache (Mac)

Have been using Mac for years.
Yesterday while on Apple Care telephone support, they recommended removing the Cashe files as I was having slow Time Machine Back ups. This all started the day I upgraded from Mojave from Sierra. Tester a 600MB TM back up took one hour and five minutes.
I have never deleted Cashe before and was unaware of it 48 hours ago.
Just looking to see who does remove their Cashe and is there any harm.
I am on Adobe Subsription LR Classic and PS.
Thank you.

What cache did they have you delete?

Right now the Cashe is in the trash can.
I did not empty it.
Being new to Cashe, it may be the web browser, but don’t hold me to that.

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I don't really know anything about this topic, but your post prompted me to do some reading about "remove cache on Mac".

One thing I read led me to believe that if you empty the cache from a web browser, it could delete some of your web history. . That terrifies me.

I refer to my history very often, and it is very important to be able to find all of the web pages I have ever visited. . That is how I reference research that I have done previously and want to find again. . I can't even imagine what a nightmare it would be for me if I lost a significant number of my history items. . So that's one thing I'd be very careful about before I went deleting the cache from a browser.


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https://macpaw.com/how​-to/clear-cache-on-mac

Nick5 wrote in post #18841167
Right now the Cashe is in the trash can.
I did not empty it.
Being new to Cashe, it may be the web browser, but don’t hold me to that.

As the article Pekka posted point out, generally speaking you should be fine. Considering the Apple support staff helped you out, I suspect they know what to do, is there a reason you don't trust them?

Without specifics it's impossible to say one way or another, but with the cache in the trash, it should already be out of use by the system and apps. So if everything works go ahead and empty it.

Tom, sounds kinda like you are talking about bookmarks, not history.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18841171
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I don't really know anything about this topic, but your post prompted me to do some reading about "remove cache on Mac".

One thing I read led me to believe that if you empty the cache from a web browser, it could delete some of your web history. . That terrifies me.

I refer to my history very often, and it is very important to be able to find all of the web pages I have ever visited. . That is how I reference research that I have done previously and want to find again. . I can't even imagine what a nightmare it would be for me if I lost a significant number of my history items. . So that's one thing I'd be very careful about before I went deleting the cache from a browser.


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I think you mean the links to the pages?

The cache stores much more than that- it stores images, java scripts, videos, style sheets, etc. It is intended to temporarily store these things for future access, so a lot of transmission resources aren't required to send it again. When you go back to a web page, the browser should verify what needs refreshed. If there is new information, the cached file is replaced. These items should have a maximum time they should remain on your system (10 minutes or so). Sometimes this gets fouled up, and the cache is left with a ton of old information.

If some of those links are important to you, I do suggest copying them to something else- a Word document works fine, or a text file, that you can store or backup. Copy the URL from the browser, and paste it into your document, then save it the document. Use the link for the document to verify it was copied correctly before closing the web page you wish to refer to in the future. The cache was only intended to store data for a limited time.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18841375
Tom, sounds kinda like you are talking about bookmarks, not history.

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Oh, no. . I do mean history, not just bookmarks. . I use bookmarks for only the very most important things. . But there are, literally, thousands upon thousands of webpages that I've visited that I want to be able to get back to at some point in the future.

I am a web-surfing, researching maniac! . I research several things every day, and never want to forget any of the sources I've found for any of the stuff I've read about.

If I remember that one day a few years ago I was researching Ili Pika, then I want to be able to look back in my history and see every webpage that I opened that day when I spent a half hour reading about those Pikas.

I remember researching Quenton Nelson (guard for the Indianapolis Colts) last year around this time, right before he was drafted by Indy. . I want to be able to see what I read about him BEFORE I knew that he would be a Colt. . The only way I know to do that is to have my entire history intact.

Ditto with the travel research I was doing on the Autonomous Zone in Tibet, with the marine plywood research I did when planning to build a tundra sled, with the research I did on the best vantage points from which to photograph Montana's Race to the Sky, with research regarding Steller's Eiders off the coast of Estonia, etc, etc, etc. . When you do tons of research on hundreds of different things every month, and want to be able to see exactly what pages you viewed two, four, or seven years ago, then, well, how do you ensure that you have a record of all of that, if you don't preserve your full web history?
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Capn Jack wrote in post #18841388
I think you mean the links to the pages?

If some of those links are important to you, I do suggest copying them to something else- a Word document works fine, or a text file, that you can store or backup. Copy the URL from the browser, and paste it into your document, then save it the document. Use the link for the document to verify it was copied correctly before closing the web page you wish to refer to in the future.

Jack,

The sheer volume that I am dealing with - wanting to preserve tens of thousands of web pages from my history - makes doing what you recommend an overwhelming and daunting task. . I simply cannot even imagine the amount of tedious time that it would take to do what you say for all of those web pages whose history I want to preserve.


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So that website from a few years ago is still in your history? Most browsers only keep a month or two by default.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18841455
So that website from a few years ago is still in your history? Most browsers only keep a month or two by default.

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No, because when I called Apple Support last spring, they had me reset a whole bunch of stuff on my computer and install a new operating system. . It wiped out my web history on Chrome. . I trusted them, and wish I hadn't. . Hence, my Chrome history only dates back to that day I did all the resetting and the new operating system, which was March 15 of last year. . So this is the furthest back my Chrome history goes:

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18841500
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No, because when I called Apple Support last spring, they had me reset a whole bunch of stuff on my computer and install a new operating system. . It wiped out my web history on Chrome. . I trusted them, and wish I hadn't. . Hence, my Chrome history only dates back to that day I did all the resetting and the new operating system, which was March 15 of last year. . So this is the furthest back my Chrome history goes:

Hosted photo: posted by Tom Reichner in
./showthread.php?p=188​41500&i=i165121826
forum: Computers

Thankfully, I use Google as a "hub" or a "base" for almost all of my web research, and Google maintains a complete history of everything I have searched for, and also of every page I have visited if it was accessed from their search results. . It dates all the way back to the early 2000's when I first set up a Google account.

YouTube (a part of Google) also retains a complete record of all searches I have done there, as well as a complete history of every video I have watched.

There is no time limit on these personal Google and YouTube archives, which has come in really handy due to that disaster last March, when my Chrome and Safari histories got wiped clean.

Having access to everything one has visited can be quite useful. . Back in November a friend asked me when I first learned about Cherry Creek State Park in Colorado. . I couldn't remember precisely, and that really bothered me. However, by searching the archives of my Google history, I was able to determine that the first time I had ever heard about Cherry Creek was in June of 2012, and that I first learned of the park by seeing a photo on Flickr that piqued my interest. . That is just one of many, many examples of me wanting to remember something and using my web/search history to be able to access the info that my brain just couldn't hold onto.

I wish that I could remember everything I ever thought or read, but I can't, so having histories fully intact is crucial to being able to get information that my brain can't remember. . Otherwise, I might do or think something, and then years later not be able to remember exactly what it was that I thought or when I first thought it.

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As far as wiping out your web history, unless you have changed things Google says Chrome only retains it history for 90 days. There are ways to keep it forever and I would suggest you review the material at https://troubleshooter​.xyz …e-chrome-history-forever/.

Nick5 wrote in post #18841167
Right now the Cashe is in the trash can.
I did not empty it.
Being new to Cache, it may be the web browser, but don’t hold me to that.

You need to understand/clarify with them - WHAT cache (there are many) did they tell you to delete? What reason did they give for deleting it?

Are you sure they meant delete the cache or could they have meant delete/exclude it from your time machine backup?

A cache is a collection of recently used temporary files created by an application - none of which need to be backed up. Deleting the cache removes those files until you use the application again at which point it will start creating new temporary files. In other words - unless there is a corrupt file that is causing TM to choke - deleting the cache will make no meaningful different to the operation of time machine. As soon as you next use that app the cache will be back.

The correct approach is to identify where the cache is stored and exclude it permanently from the TM backup. As an example, with Lightroom you should exclude the cache (location can be found in Lightroom's Edit > Preferences > Performance tab) and also the Previews folder (Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata folder usually in the same folder as your catalog).

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18841450
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Oh, no. . I do mean history, not just bookmarks. . I use bookmarks for only the very most important things. . But there are, literally, thousands upon thousands of webpages that I've visited that I want to be able to get back to at some point in the future.

I am a web-surfing, researching maniac! . I research several things every day, and never want to forget any of the sources I've found for any of the stuff I've read about.

If I remember that one day a few years ago I was researching Ili Pika, then I want to be able to look back in my history and see every webpage that I opened that day when I spent a half hour reading about those Pikas.

I remember researching Quenton Nelson (guard for the Indianapolis Colts) last year around this time, right before he was drafted by Indy. . I want to be able to see what I read about him BEFORE I knew that he would be a Colt. . The only way I know to do that is to have my entire history intact.

Ditto with the travel research I was doing on the Autonomous Zone in Tibet, with the marine plywood research I did when planning to build a tundra sled, with the research I did on the best vantage points from which to photograph Montana's Race to the Sky, with research regarding Steller's Eiders off the coast of Estonia, etc, etc, etc. . When you do tons of research on hundreds of different things every month, and want to be able to see exactly what pages you viewed two, four, or seven years ago, then, well, how do you ensure that you have a record of all of that, if you don't preserve your full web history?
.

Jack,

The sheer volume that I am dealing with - wanting to preserve tens of thousands of web pages from my history - makes doing what you recommend an overwhelming and daunting task. . I simply cannot even imagine the amount of tedious time that it would take to do what you say for all of those web pages whose history I want to preserve.

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If it works for you, that's great, but be aware that you are using the cache and history in a manner unintended by the software designers. Unfortunately, I don't have any good suggestions that would keep your entire history in a way you can reuse it easily. I noted in another post that you could your view history back to 2018- if you could select this and copy it to a clipboard, you can paste it into a document. You can then do incremental backups (by selecting the previous week's history and copying it). The problem is then searching in your word file for the item(s) you need.

Tom please be aware that although you keep a copy of your Google searches etc all the way back, it doesn't mean you will always be able to access those pages. Over the years many pages get updated and changed. Also many get removed from the web, and since your computer would have to reload the page, you will have no way of being sure what you get now is the same was what you got then. This is becoming more and more so, since now it is far more common that pages online are dynamically generated by scripts, rather than by the use of static HTML pages.

Alan

BigAl007 wrote in post #18841627
Tom please be aware that although you keep a copy of your Google searches etc all the way back, it doesn't mean you will always be able to access those pages. Over the years many pages get updated and changed. Also many get removed from the web, and since your computer would have to reload the page, you will have no way of being sure what you get now is the same was what you got then.

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Yes, I am fully aware of that. . Of course! . That's quite obvious and anyone who uses bookmarks or history links has experienced that countless times.

That's why for the REALLY important things I do screenshots of the page and save it in a folder. . But the problem is, once I got several thousand screenshots, then it became very hard to find what I need in just a few seconds. . Of course, I could add more info when I save the screenshot, or create more specific folders for the screenshots to be sorted into, but anything like that takes more time, which completely defeats the purpose. . The purpose is to have things saved automatically and to be able to retrieve exactly what I want with almost no time or effort whatsoever. . Complete automation. . As soon as I have to DO something, then it isn't a very attractive option anymore.

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Capn Jack wrote in post #18841611
I noted in another post that you could your view history back to 2018- if you could select this and copy it to a clipboard, you can paste it into a document. You can then do incremental backups (by selecting the previous week's history and copying it). The problem is then searching in your word file for the item(s) you need.

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I wish there was some way that everything I see or do or think (not just online, but everything in life) could be automatically saved in a way that could be instantly accessed forever. . I hate not being able to remember all of the specifics about everything that occurs in life, and trying to document absolutely everything becomes a real burden.


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