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: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/nuget/consume-packages/… — Simon_Weaver
– Simon_Weaver, Commented May 25, 2017 at 0:32

Rhys Bevilaqua · Accepted Answer · 2024-10-31 01:26:04Z

1057

Using dotnet cli

The easiest way is to use the dotnet cli from a command prompt, this will now be installed along with any of the current dotnet sdks

You can list the local caches with this command:

dotnet nuget locals --list all

You can clear all caches with this command:

dotnet nuget locals --clear all

Using nuget.exe

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 Oct 31, 2024 at 1:26

Rhys Bevilaqua

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answered Jan 21, 2016 at 21:52

rm8x

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12 Comments

Zhaph - Ben Duguid Over a year ago

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`

user3610920 Over a year ago

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

ajbeaven Over a year ago

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'

Sharif Over a year ago

make sure you close your VS since devenv.exe might be blocking some package folders and they won't be cleared.

Roland Pihlakas Over a year ago

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.

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Drew Noakes · Accepted Answer · 2022-10-12 00:30:03Z

433

In Visual Studio 2022, go to menu Tools → NuGet Package Manager → Package Manager Settings. You may find out a button, Clear All NuGet Storage:

The steps are similar in previous versions of Visual Studio too.

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 Oct 12, 2022 at 0:30

Drew Noakes

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answered Mar 8, 2017 at 8:03

Ricky

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2 Comments

Sergey Zhukov Over a year ago

dotnet nugget locals all -c does not delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\NuGet\Cache\ folder.

dario_ramos Over a year ago

You might probably need to open Visual Studio as an administrator to do this; I usually run VS as a non-admin user, so that was a catch

Jim Aho · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-20 09:45:51Z

143

dotnet nuget locals all --clear

If you're using .NET Core.

answered Mar 20, 2019 at 9:45

Jim Aho

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2 Comments

Post Impatica Over a year ago

I would suggest doing this before you go to lunch.

Tim Abell Over a year ago

The clear was quick, it's just the next build that takes a little while.

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-11 02:52:51Z

97

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, 2020 at 2:52

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jun 19, 2015 at 13:28

Kiliman

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2 Comments

g.pickardou Over a year ago

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.

MarkPflug Over a year ago

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.

Bowofola · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-02 15:56:35Z

43

For me I had to go in here:

%userprofile%\.nuget\packages

answered Mar 2, 2017 at 15:56

Bowofola

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Comments

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-11 02:56:21Z

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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, 2020 at 2:56

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 23, 2016 at 17:58

Shaun Luttin

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3 Comments

Emil Over a year ago

what is the point of deleting if nuget will generate all those with every build? why nuget is creating so many folders indeed?

Simon_Weaver Over a year ago

@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

Steve Wright Over a year ago

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.

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-11 03:03:50Z

22

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, 2020 at 3:03

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 10, 2016 at 3:40

KCD

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3 Comments

Alexz S. Over a year ago

I would go with the approach above from Ruslan as I has some issues with packages even passing --no-cache

shanabus Over a year ago

Running dotnet restore --no-cache worked for me, but I had to do it from a Powershell prompt running as administrator

JonnyRaa Over a year ago

this command helped me work out what was going on when dotnet run was failing to restore packages but not providing any useful output

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-11 03:01:54Z

9

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, 2020 at 3:01

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 20, 2016 at 1:32

khablander

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1 Comment

Kjartan Over a year ago

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.

George M · Accepted Answer · 2021-11-02 17:06:57Z

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>

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-11 03:00:28Z

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, 2020 at 3:00

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 5, 2016 at 14:42

honzakuzel1989

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Comments

dokaspar · Accepted Answer · 2021-11-18 08:55:49Z

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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, 2021 at 8:55

dokaspar

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Comments

Andrey Ravkov · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-22 18:49:23Z

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

answered Feb 22, 2022 at 18:49

Andrey Ravkov

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Comments

Scott Mc · Accepted Answer · 2024-11-11 03:58:58Z

0

A slightly more forgiving and verbose version of George M's answer:

<!--Important since we're using a local nuget source, aren't implementing autoincrement version numbers-->
<!--and dotnet nuget doesn't have a command to delete just one cached package-->
<Target Name="DeleteLocalCache" BeforeTargets="Pack">
    <ItemGroup>
        <_ClobberDirectories Include="$([System.IO.Directory]::GetDirectories($(NugetPackageRoot), '$(PackageId.ToLower())', System.IO.SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly))" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <Message Importance="High" Text="Deleting @(_ClobberDirectories)"/>
    <RemoveDir Directories="@(_ClobberDirectories)"  ContinueOnError="true"/>
</Target>

answered Nov 11, 2024 at 3:58

Scott Mc

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