What is ms-playwright in Library/Caches? Safe to delete?
Yes, the ms-playwright folder is safe to delete. It contains browser builds that Playwright downloaded for automated tests, and one command installs them again.
Where it is
~/Library/Caches/ms-playwrightWhat it is
Playwright is a browser testing and automation tool. It does not use the browsers installed on your Mac. It downloads its own builds of Chromium, Firefox and WebKit into ~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright.
Each Playwright release is tied to specific browser builds. When a project updates Playwright, new builds are downloaded, and older ones can remain if another project or an old install still points at them.
You may have this folder without having installed Playwright yourself, because other tools that drive a browser use it too.
How big it gets
Each browser build is a few hundred MB, so several versions can add up to a few GB.
How to clear it by hand
- Make sure no tests are running.
- In a project that uses Playwright, run the command below. It removes the browsers downloaded by every Playwright installation on your Mac.
- Alternatively, move ~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright to the Trash in Finder.
- When you need the browsers again, run npx playwright install in the project.
npx playwright uninstall --allWhat happens afterwards
Playwright tests fail with a message asking you to install browsers until you run npx playwright install again. Your own browsers and their data are not affected.
How Diskzy handles it
Diskzy shows this folder with its size on the disk map and counts it among caches under System Data, so you can see how much the test browsers take.
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