# Can I delete ~/.cache/huggingface/datasets on Mac?

- URL: https://moreroom.app/folders/ai-huggingface-datasets-cache
- Item: Hugging Face processed datasets
- Location: `~/.cache/huggingface/datasets`
- Verdict: Review first — Might hold something you care about. Look inside before removing it.
- Comes back on its own: yes
- Typical size: 1–200 GB
- Source: MoreRoom rules catalogue (2026-10-17), by Yando Pte. Ltd.

## What is it?

The Hugging Face datasets library converts downloaded data into Arrow files and stores them, along with processed versions (after map, filter and similar steps), in `~/.cache/huggingface/datasets`. This processed copy can be larger than the original download.

## What happens if you delete it?

The datasets library rebuilds the Arrow files from the hub cache, or downloads the data again, the next time a script calls `load_dataset`. Expensive processing steps are recomputed.

## How to remove it properly

Quit any notebook or script using datasets, then move the folder to the Trash in Finder (Go › Go to Folder… `~/.cache/huggingface/datasets`), or remove only the dataset subfolders you no longer use.

## Before you delete it

Datasets saved locally with `save_to_disk` elsewhere are not affected, but long preprocessing results cached here will need to be recomputed.