Spotify for Windows caches streamed audio aggressively and stores offline-downloaded playlists in full. On a heavy user's PC the Spotify folder routinely reaches 10–20 GB.

Short answer: in the Spotify desktop app, go to Settings > Storage and click Clear cache. For offline downloads, remove downloaded playlists individually by toggling their Downloaded switch off.

Clearing the streaming cache from inside Spotify

  1. open the Spotify desktop app
  2. click your profile avatar (top right) > Settings
  3. scroll to Storage
  4. click Clear cache
  5. confirm

This wipes the streaming cache (songs Spotify cached while you played them) without removing anything you explicitly downloaded. Next time you play those tracks, Spotify re-streams them.

You can also cap the cache size on the same Storage screen — useful if you routinely forget to clear it.

Removing offline downloads

Downloaded playlists and albums do not live in the streaming cache — they are a separate, permanent store. Clear them per-playlist inside Spotify:

  1. open each playlist you have downloaded
  2. find the green Downloaded indicator at the top
  3. toggle it off — Spotify deletes the downloaded files immediately

Only Premium accounts can download in the first place, so Free accounts have nothing in this bucket.

If Spotify is still huge afterward — nuke AppData

If the app is behaving strangely (won't play, stuck syncing) or the folder stays huge:

  1. fully quit Spotify (right-click the tray icon and Quit)
  2. press Windows + R, type %appdata%\Spotify, press Enter — this is settings (safe to delete if you are okay signing back in)
  3. press Windows + R, type %localappdata%\Spotify, press Enter — this is binaries and cache
  4. close Spotify entirely, then delete the Storage and Data subfolders under %localappdata%\Spotify
  5. relaunch Spotify — it rebuilds a clean cache

Do not delete %localappdata%\Spotify wholesale unless you want to reinstall.

Better next routes

For the Discord equivalent, continue with How to Clear the Discord Cache on PC (next wave).

For the broader Windows cleanup, read How to Free Up Space on C Drive Windows 11 Natively.