DingTalk, Lark and WeCom Keep Growing on Your Mac: How to Clear Their Cache

DingTalk, Lark (Feishu in mainland China) and WeCom are more than chat apps. Approvals, documents, meetings and all kinds of workplace mini apps live inside them too. Most of those features are built as web pages, and all three apps embed a web engine, so every page you open leaves behind some web, script and graphics cache. Add the photos and files sent in chats, and a few gigabytes of usage after a while is common.

The cache is safe to clear, but chat history and files need more care. Below, you'll see how each app defines its cache, where its built-in cleanup lives, and how to handle all three at once with WashBear.

#Cache versus chat data

The three apps don't mean quite the same thing by "clear cache", so it's worth knowing what each says before you start:

• Lark: the Lark Help Center explains that chat records and online documents are stored in the cloud, and clearing the cache only removes locally cached images, videos and similar content.
• DingTalk: the DingTalk Help Center says clearing the cache deletes the local message cache (images, videos and files) on the current device only, and that afterward chat history can only be loaded for the last 180 days.
• WeCom: the WeCom Help Center notes that in chats with external contacts and WeChat users, images and files are kept in the cloud for a limited number of days. An image you have viewed may become unavailable after you clear the cache, because it has expired on the server.

So the part you can clear without touching your chats is the rendering cache from the built-in web engine, temporary files from mini apps and workplace pages, and logs. Keep the chat databases and the files you've downloaded.

#Use each app's own cleanup

#Lark

Click your profile photo in the upper-left corner, choose Settings > General, then click the Clear cache button, which shows how much it will free. Lark says this doesn't clear chat records or online documents stored in the cloud.

Two other options are easy to mix up:

• Reset next to Reset Settings, under Settings > System Diagnostics, restores all settings and clears all local cache data. Anything stored only on your device, such as message drafts, is lost. Use it to fix problems, not for routine cleanup.
• Feishu also offers 清理消息文件 (clean up message files) under Settings > General. It deletes the images, videos and files you've sent to chats, and afterward they can't be viewed or downloaded in those chats. You don't need it to free up space on your Mac.

#DingTalk

Click your profile photo in the upper-left corner and open 设置与隐私 (Settings and Privacy). Its 存储空间 (Storage) page lists cache data and chat data separately; in some versions the option sits under 高级 (Advanced). Clearing the cache data is usually enough. Think twice before clearing chat data: according to DingTalk, once the local message cache is gone, older chat history may no longer load.

#WeCom

WeCom's help center currently says that batch-clearing files and images from chats isn't available on the Mac. On a Mac, what you can safely clear is mainly the cache of WeCom's built-in web engine, which WashBear handles as described below.

#Clear all three with WashBear

Opening each app's settings one by one gets tedious. Deep Cleanup in WashBear finds the caches of all three apps together and clears only the cache.

1. Open Deep Cleanup and click Start Scan.
2. Look for these items under Application caches. Only items with content on this Mac are shown:

3. All of these are marked Low risk and are preselected by Smart recommendation. Expand an item to see its exact locations.
4. Click Clean. Each of these items needs its app closed first. Select the apps under Close running apps (optional) in Confirm cleanup, and WashBear closes them before cleaning. Save any documents and send any messages you're working on first.
5. Click Start cleanup.

DingTalk may download some cached content again after it restarts, which is expected. Cleanup deletes files directly rather than moving them to the Trash, and the result is recorded in Operation History.

The same category also includes items for other work apps, such as Tencent Meeting cache, WPS Office application cache, Microsoft Teams cache and Slack cache, which likewise clear only the cache. For WeChat, see WeChat for Mac taking up tens of GB.

#Folders not to delete by hand

Even if these folders look huge in Finder, don't delete them. Besides cache, they hold chat databases, accounts and workspace data:

• DingTalk: ~/Library/Application Support/DingTalkMac
• Lark: ~/Library/Application Support/LarkShell
• WeCom: ~/Library/Containers/com.tencent.WeWorkMac

WashBear only clears specific cache folders inside them and leaves everything else alone. To learn how it decides what's safe, see Deep Cleanup.

#FAQ

#Will I have to sign in again?

All of these WashBear items keep your account data, and the Lark and WeCom items explicitly keep your sign-in state. Just open the app again after cleaning.

#Why is the app slower right after cleaning?

With the cache gone, workplace pages, documents and mini apps have to load from scratch the first time. Things return to normal after that.

#How often should I clean?

There's no need for a schedule. Clean when disk space gets tight; Lark also suggests clearing the cache when low local space stops you from sending images or downloading attachments.