How to Stop Microsoft Teams From Filling Your Mac SSD (Cache, Logs, Settings)

If you have ever opened Disk Utility and wondered where your storage went, Microsoft Teams is frequently the culprit. Teams filling up disk space on your Mac is a well-documented pattern: the app accumulates meeting recordings, chat media, call logs, GPU shader caches, and update bundles that it rarely cleans up on its own. A single power user running Teams daily for a year can easily find 10–20 GB sitting in hidden Library folders. This guide explains exactly where that data lives, what each folder does, what is safe to delete, and how to stop the accumulation from coming back.

Why Teams Uses So Much Storage

Teams is an Electron-based application on Mac, which means it bundles its own Chromium engine and V8 runtime. That architecture is inherently storage-hungry because it independently caches web assets, GPU shaders, and JavaScript blobs the same way a browser does — but without the browser's built-in cache-size limits. On top of that, Teams stores:

• Meeting media — recorded calls and shared screen captures, which can be hundreds of megabytes each.
• SQLite chat databases — local message history and attachments synced from each channel you belong to.
• Update packages — Teams auto-updates silently and sometimes leaves old installer bundles behind.
• Diagnostic and crash logs — verbose telemetry that accumulates indefinitely unless the app is uninstalled.
• Electron GPU and shader caches — large binary blobs that speed up rendering but grow unbounded over time.

Where Teams Stores Its Data on macOS

Teams (both the classic and the new Teams client introduced in 2023) stores data across several locations in your home folder. The paths below apply to macOS Sequoia and Tahoe on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.

To quickly see how large each folder actually is on your machine, open Terminal and run:

du -sh ~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.teams2 \
       ~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.teams \
       "~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MSTeams" \
       ~/Library/Logs/Microsoft/MSTeams 2>/dev/null

This prints human-readable sizes so you know exactly where the gigabytes are going before you delete anything.

How to Clear Teams Cache and Logs (Step-by-Step)

Follow these steps in order. Quit Teams completely before you begin — data files written while the app is running can be in an inconsistent state.

1. Quit Teams fully. Click the Teams icon in your menu bar and choose Quit. Do not just close the window, since Teams continues running as a menu-bar agent.
2. Delete the Electron cache. In Terminal:
   rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.teams2
3. Delete classic Teams cache if present:
   rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.teams
4. Clear logs:
   rm -rf ~/Library/Logs/Microsoft/MSTeams
5. Remove Teams-opened downloads (files you viewed inside chat — they still exist in SharePoint/OneDrive):
   rm -rf "~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MSTeams/Downloads"
6. Remove WebKit storage:
   rm -rf ~/Library/WebKit/com.microsoft.teams2
7. Remove saved window state:
   rm -rf ~/Library/Saved\ Application\ State/com.microsoft.teams2.savedState
8. Relaunch Teams. It will re-sync your channels and rebuild its caches from scratch. Expect the first load to be slower than usual.

After this process most users recover between 3 GB and 15 GB, depending on how long Teams has been running and how many large meetings took place. If you want an overview of what other apps are contributing to storage bloat, this guide on what's taking up space on your Mac gives a broader picture.

What You Should NOT Delete

The Application Support folder contains more than just downloads. Be careful with these subfolders:

• ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MSTeams/IndexedDB — local message index. Deleting it means Teams has to re-download your full message history on next login, which can take time on large organizations.
• ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MSTeams/Local Storage — stores authentication tokens and app preferences. Deleting this logs you out.
• Any folder inside Application Support/Microsoft/MSTeams that you did not specifically create — when in doubt, leave it and delete only Downloads and the cache paths listed above.

Preventing Teams From Growing Out of Control Again

Clearing the cache manually works, but Teams will rebuild it within weeks. Here are ongoing habits and settings that help keep growth manageable:

• Limit video meeting downloads. Teams automatically downloads recordings shared in channels. In Teams Settings > Files, disable auto-download of large files if the option is available for your organization policy.
• Set up a monthly cache-clear reminder. A calendar event or a simple shell alias makes it easy to run the rm -rf commands above once a month without having to look them up each time.
• Leave channels you no longer use. Teams syncs local databases for every channel you belong to. Leaving inactive channels reduces the footprint of the IndexedDB folder over time.
• Keep Teams updated. Microsoft has shipped several storage-efficiency improvements in the new Teams client. Staying current ensures you get those fixes. Teams usually auto-updates, but you can trigger a manual check via the profile menu > Check for updates.
• Audit periodically. A tool like Crumb can audit all of these locations at once and show what is safe to remove before you delete anything, which is useful if you also run other communication apps like Slack or Zoom alongside Teams.

The New Teams vs. Classic Teams: Storage Differences

Microsoft transitioned Mac users to the new Teams client in 2023–2024. The new client runs under the bundle ID com.microsoft.teams2 while the classic client used com.microsoft.teams. If you upgraded without explicitly removing the old app, you may have residual cache and support data from both clients sitting on your SSD simultaneously.

Check whether you have leftovers from the classic client

Run this in Terminal:

ls ~/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft/ | grep -i team
du -sh ~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.teams 2>/dev/null

If that second command returns a non-zero size, you have old-client debris. It is safe to remove the entire com.microsoft.teams cache folder and the matching Application Support subfolder, provided you are running the new Teams client exclusively.

Uninstalling Teams Completely (Nuclear Option)

If Teams is not something you use regularly and you want to reclaim every byte it holds, a full uninstall requires touching more than just the /Applications folder. Beyond what is listed in the table above, check:

• ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.teams2.plist
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.teams.plist
• ~/Library/HTTPStorages/com.microsoft.teams2
• /Library/LaunchDaemons/ — search for any plist whose label contains microsoft.teams

For a thorough walkthrough of fully removing apps and all their support files, see how to completely uninstall apps on Mac.

Quick Summary

Microsoft Teams stores cache, logs, downloaded attachments, and application state across at least seven separate folders in your home Library. The cache folders (com.microsoft.teams2 and com.microsoft.teams) are always safe to delete — Teams rebuilds them automatically. The logs folder is also safe to remove. Be more careful inside Application Support/Microsoft/MSTeams: limit deletions to the Downloads subfolder unless you are doing a full uninstall. Running the cleanup steps above once a month and leaving channels you no longer need are the two highest-leverage habits to keep Teams from slowly consuming your SSD.