How can I clear the NuGet package cache using the command line?

Question

I can clear my development computer's NuGet package cache using Visual Studio menu Tools → Options → NuGet Package Manager → General: Clear Package Cache button.

I would like to do this on the command line. Unfortunately, I can not find a related command line switch for nuget.exe.

Did I miss something?

Microsoft's doc: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/nuget/consume-packages/managing-the-nuget-cache — Simon_Weaver, May 25 '17 at 00:32

score 777 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 22 '17 at 15:24

777

First, download the NuGet command line tool from here.

Next, open a command prompt and cd to the directory to which nuget.exe was downloaded.

You can list the local caches with this command:

nuget locals all -list

You can clear all caches with this command:

nuget locals all -clear

Reference: https://docs.nuget.org/consume/command-line-reference

edited Nov 22 '17 at 15:24

wonea

4,425
17
82
137

answered Jan 21 '16 at 21:52

rm8x

8,039
1
12
18

12

Works nicely for 3.3 but only for the current user - I had an issue with a corrupt local cache on our build server which was (sadly) running under Local System, so the cache wasn't listed - actual location was `C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\NuGet\Cache\` – Zhaph - Ben Duguid Mar 08 '16 at 12:11
2

Maybe you should run the clear operation under the very same user as the build operation. Either with configuring a dedicated build user, or using a trick to run the clear under Local System. – g.pickardou Apr 26 '16 at 05:46
5

Is there any possibilities of removing particular NuGet from cache? for ex: I want to remove NuGet X from cache and am not aware of NuGet cache location, in this situation how to remove "X" alone from cache – user3610920 Jul 13 '16 at 09:41
26

I had to run `nuget update -self` to update the _nuget.exe_ I downloaded from this link otherwise I got the error `Unknown commmand: 'locals'` – ajbeaven Sep 11 '16 at 23:30
1

If you have VS 2017, don't do this. See https://stackoverflow.com/a/42665980/1754995 (answer by Ricky below). – Kody Nov 01 '17 at 17:20
2

make sure you close your VS since `devenv.exe` might be blocking some package folders and they won't be cleared. – Sharif Nov 08 '17 at 15:02
Be careful with this command. It will cause a lot of downloads and CPU usage in Visual Studio later. Using `dotnet nuget locals http-cache --clear` seems more reasonable option. It will provide less disk space though. – Roland Pihlakas Jul 03 '21 at 18:58

score 302 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 11 '20 at 03:06

302

In Visual Studio 2017, go to menu Tools → NuGet Package Manager → Package Manager Settings. You may find out a button, Clear All NuGet Cache(s):

If you are using .NET Core, you may clear the cache with this command, which should work as of .NET Core tools 1.0:

dotnet nuget locals all --clear

edited Mar 11 '20 at 03:06

Peter Mortensen

30,030
21
100
124

answered Mar 08 '17 at 08:03

Ricky

9,386
3
25
31

11

So it's back! :-). I am curious if it will be removed again in VS 2019 :-) – g.pickardou Mar 08 '17 at 18:04
2

Now in the future, this button was not removed in VS 2019 @g.pickardou. – Ender Look Jul 08 '20 at 16:02
`dotnet nugget locals all -c` does not delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\NuGet\Cache\ folder. – Sergey Zhukov May 22 '21 at 04:59

score 96 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 11 '20 at 02:52

96

The nuget.exe utility doesn't have this feature, but seeing that the NuGet cache is simply a folder on your computer, you can delete the files manually. Just add this to your batch file:

del %LOCALAPPDATA%\NuGet\Cache\*.nupkg /q

edited Mar 11 '20 at 02:52

Peter Mortensen

30,030
21
100
124

answered Jun 19 '15 at 13:28

Kiliman

16,402
3
36
34

7

At the time of asking this was the only solution, so was the best answer. Now I've unmarked it, and credited @rmoore's answer after trying it out. – g.pickardou Apr 20 '16 at 04:34
1

I needed to clear the cache for a different user (the build identity), and this was the only mechanism that cleared the cache. The command line tool would only clear the caches for my own identity. – MarkPflug Jul 08 '20 at 18:13

score 43 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 20 '19 at 09:45

43

dotnet nuget locals all --clear

If you're using .NET Core.

answered Mar 20 '19 at 09:45

Jim Aho

7,796
11
49
80

1

I would suggest doing this before you go to lunch. – Post Impatica Oct 07 '19 at 16:00
3

The clear was quick, it's just the next build that takes a little while. – Tim Abell Sep 10 '20 at 09:28

score 37 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 02 '17 at 15:56

37

For me I had to go in here:

%userprofile%\.nuget\packages

answered Mar 02 '17 at 15:56

Bowofola

1,014
9
12

3

This is the right path where all the nugets are downloaded and kept – Alok Rajasukumaran Mar 06 '17 at 07:33
4

And , I had 2.04 Gb nuget packages :o – Alok Rajasukumaran Mar 06 '17 at 07:34
26

2.04GB is about the same as node_modules for a "hello world" node app ;) – tommed May 04 '17 at 09:13

score 22 · Answer 6 · edited Mar 11 '20 at 02:56

22

This adds to rm8x's answer.

Download and install the NuGet command line tool.

From Chocolatey → https://chocolatey.org/packages/NuGet.CommandLine
from NuGet.org → https://www.nuget.org/

List all of our locals:

$ nuget locals all -list
http-cache: C:\Users\MyUser\AppData\Local\NuGet\v3-cache
packages-cache: C:\Users\MyUser\AppData\Local\NuGet\Cache
global-packages: C:\Users\MyUser\.nuget\packages\

We can now delete these manually or as rm8x suggests, use nuget locals all -clear.

edited Mar 11 '20 at 02:56

Peter Mortensen

30,030
21
100
124

answered Feb 23 '16 at 17:58

Shaun Luttin

121,071
74
369
447

1

what is the point of deleting if nuget will generate all those with every build? why nuget is creating so many folders indeed? – Emil Nov 17 '16 at 10:42
3

@batmaci because over time packages get updated and you'll end up with `Batmaci 1.0`, `Batmaci 1.1`, `Batmaci 1.2` where all you need is the latest one – Simon_Weaver May 25 '17 at 00:31
1

We had the occasional problem on our build server with not finding NuGet packages in the cache. We solved it by always clearing the cache at the start of the build. – Steve Wright Apr 27 '20 at 20:13

score 17 · Answer 7 · edited Mar 11 '20 at 03:03

17

Note that dnx has a different cache for feeding HTTP results:

Microsoft .NET Development Utility Clr-x86-1.0.0-rc1-16231
   CACHE https://www.nuget.org/api/v2/
   CACHE http://192.168.148.21/api/odata/

Which you can clear with

dnu clear-http-cache

Now we just need to find out what the command will be on the new dotnet CLI tool.

...and here it is:

dotnet restore --no-cache

edited Mar 11 '20 at 03:03

Peter Mortensen

30,030
21
100
124

answered May 10 '16 at 03:40

KCD

9,337
4
63
72

2

I would go with the approach above from Ruslan as I has some issues with packages even passing --no-cache – Alexz Jan 09 '17 at 15:32
1

Running `dotnet restore --no-cache` worked for me, but I had to do it from a Powershell prompt running as administrator – shanabus Feb 28 '19 at 20:48

score 7 · Answer 8 · edited Mar 11 '20 at 03:01

7

If you need to clear the NuGet cache for your build server/agent you can find the cache for NuGet packages here:

%windir%/ServiceProfiles/[account under build service runs]\AppData\Local\NuGet\Cache

Example:

C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Local\NuGet\Cache

edited Mar 11 '20 at 03:01

Peter Mortensen

30,030
21
100
124

answered Apr 20 '16 at 01:32

khablander

139
1
5

3

I took the liberty of marking the path to make it more readable, and replacing [windows dir] with `%windir%`, which will automatically put you in the right directory when entered into e.g. windows explorer. – Kjartan May 12 '16 at 07:14

score 5 · Answer 9 · edited Mar 11 '20 at 03:00

5

You can use PowerShell too (same as me).

For example:

rm $env:LOCALAPPDATA\NuGet\Cache\*.nupkg

Or 'quiet' mode (without error messages):

rm $env:LOCALAPPDATA\NuGet\Cache\*.nupkg 2> $null

edited Mar 11 '20 at 03:00

Peter Mortensen

30,030
21
100
124

answered Apr 05 '16 at 14:42

honzakuzel1989

2,220
2
27
32

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Nov 02 '21 at 17:06

I ended up here because I was trying to figure out how to delete a specific nuget package from the cache. The answers above talk about deleting all local packages using nuget locals all -clear.

In case anyone is interested in clearing a specific package, I'm sharing my findings:

You can't currently clear a specific package using the nuget or dotnet cli. There is a github issue open to fix this: https://github.com/NuGet/Home/issues/5713
For now, you have to resort to filesystem commands (as some of the answers above mention) to delete the specific package. For mac/linux, it was rm -rf ~/.nuget/packages/<package-name>
What I actually needed was a way to delete the cache of a specific package that I was about to re-publish to a local nuget repository (using a fixed version number to make local development easier). I accomplished this by adding the following to the .csproj file of the nuget-packaged library:

    <Project>
      <Target Name="DeleteLocalCache" BeforeTargets="Pack">
        <RemoveDir Directories="$(NugetPackageRoot)/$(PackageId.ToLower())/1.0.0-local"/>
      </Target>
    </Project>

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Nov 18 '21 at 08:55

0

For those who installed nuget on RHEL7 (e.g., from the EPEL repository) using sudo yum install nuget, here is where local cache is located:

~/.local/share/NuGet/Cache

answered Nov 18 '21 at 08:55

dokaspar

7,537
14
66
92

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Feb 22 '22 at 18:49

0

I've saw my nugets in this folder (on build server): c:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile.nuget\packages\

answered Feb 22 '22 at 18:49

Andrey Ravkov

1,008
9
19

How can I clear the NuGet package cache using the command line?

12 Answers12

Linked