How to Clear the App Store Cache in macOS using Terminal

When the Mac App Store Fails

The Mac App Store is generally a seamless experience, but it relies heavily on locally cached data to load storefront pages, icons, and update manifests quickly. If this cache becomes corrupted or desynchronized from Apple’s servers, you will encounter incredibly frustrating bugs. The App Store might show a blank white screen, updates might hang indefinitely on “Waiting…”, or you might be completely unable to click the “Get” button on a new application.

While restarting your Mac can sometimes resolve minor glitches, a deeply corrupted cache requires a manual purge. Instead of hunting through the hidden ~/Library/Caches directory in Finder and accidentally deleting the wrong files, you can use a single Terminal command to safely and instantly obliterate the App Store cache.

The Terminal Command

Because the Mac App Store cache is tied to your specific user account, you do not need administrative (sudo) privileges to run this command.

1. Ensure the Mac App Store application is completely closed. If it is frozen, force quit it (Command + Option + Escape).
2. Open the Terminal application (located in Applications > Utilities, or searchable via Spotlight).
3. Copy and paste the following command exactly as written:

open $TMPDIR../C/com.apple.appstore/

4. Press Enter.

Understanding the Process

This command does not actually delete anything itself. Instead, it uses the open command to launch a Finder window directly into the deeply hidden, randomly generated temporary directory ($TMPDIR) where macOS stores the specific cache files for the com.apple.appstore process.

Once the Finder window opens, you will see a variety of folders (usually named things like Cache.db, fsCachedData, or pending).

Purging the Cache

1. In the Finder window that just opened, press Command + A on your keyboard to select every single file and folder inside that directory.
2. Right-click and select Move to Trash (or press Command + Delete).
3. Empty your Mac’s Trash bin.

Now, relaunch the Mac App Store. It will take a few seconds longer than usual to open as it reaches out to Apple’s servers to download a fresh, uncorrupted batch of store data. Your update loops and blank screens should be completely resolved.