Apps
pip Cache
pip stores a local package download cache so repeated installs do not have to fetch the same files from PyPI or another index every time. That cache typically contains downloaded wheel files, source distribution archives such as .tar.gz and .zip, HTTP response metadata, and unpacked build artifacts used during installs; Kudu removes these temporary package caches without touching installed Python packages, virtual environments, user code, credentials, or pip configuration.
Why clean pip Cache?
- Old cached wheels built for a different Python version or platform can be reused unexpectedly, leading to install failures with messages about incompatible tags or unsupported wheels
- A corrupted downloaded wheel or source archive in the cache causes repeated checksum mismatches, unzip errors, or build failures until the bad file is removed
- Large projects that depend on many packages can leave behind hundreds of megabytes or several gigabytes of wheel and sdist archives, and users usually notice pip cache taking significant disk space in their home or AppData folders
- Stale cached responses from a previous package state can make pip appear to keep reinstalling an older build, with users seeing a version resolve differently than expected until the cache is refreshed
- Build backends often create temporary artifacts from cached source distributions, and when those artifacts no longer match current compiler or system library state, installs can fail with repeated native extension build errors
- If you switch between multiple Python interpreters, architectures, or operating systems in shared home directories, cached package files accumulate quickly and pip spends time scanning an oversized cache before downloading fresh files
- Interrupted downloads can leave partial or unusable package archives behind, causing the same package to fail again on the next install instead of fetching a clean copy
What gets cleaned
Cache paths Kudu targets
Windows
%LocalAppData%/pip/Cache |
macOS
~/Library/Caches/pip |
Linux
~/.cache/pip |
Frequently asked
Common questions about pip Cache
Related cleaners
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