How to limit Google Chrome Cache Size in Windows

If Google Chrome is using a lot of disk space for cache, follow these steps to limit Google Cache size in Windows 10.

Every time you visit a website in the Chrome browser, it will cache that site. When you visit the same website next time, Chrome will use the previously cached data to load that website faster. For a majority of users, this is a good thing because the web browsing experience will be faster and snappier.

However, left to its own devices, Google Chrome will use a lot of storage space for caching. On my computer, Chrome uses more than 6GB for caching purposes.

If you don’t like this behavior and would like to limit Chrome cache size, follow the below steps. The steps shown below will work in Windows 7 and 8 too.

Limit Chrome cache size in Windows 10

These are the steps you should follow to limit the Chrome cache size.

1. Open the Start menu.
2. Search for “Google Chrome” and open it.
3. After opening it, right-click on the Chrome icon in the taskbar.
4. In the list, right-click on “Google Chrome” and select “Properties“.
   
5. In the “Target” field, add --disk-cache-size=1073741824 flag at the end of the file path.
6. Click on the “Ok” button to save the changes.
   

Note:

• 1073741824 in step 5 is 1 GB in bytes. If you want to, you can replace it with any amount of space. For instance, to restrict the Google Chrome cache size to just 300MB, replace 1073741824 with 314572800. Use this website for byte conversions.
• The limit you set using the “–disk-cache-size” flag is just a suggestion. i.e, it is not a hard limit. If Chrome reaches the limit you set and it needs a bit more to properly store the cache, it will round up the cache size to accommodate the data.
• This trick is limited to the current Chrome profile only. If you have multiple Chrome profiles, you need to set the cache size for each profile individually.

Steps to See Current Chrome Cache Size

If you are interested, you can see how much space Chrome is currently using for caching. Follow the steps shown below to find the current Google Chrome cache size.

1. Press “Win + R” to open the Run dialog box.
2. In the blank field, type “%localappdata%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default”.
3. Click on the “Ok” button.
4. In the File Explorer, find the “Cache” folder.
5. Right-click on the “Cache” folder and select “Properties”.
   
6. In the properties window, you will see the cache size next to “Size”.

The cache size you see in the properties is the full cache size of Google Chrome for your Windows user account. Each Windows user account has its own cache folder. If you have multiple Windows users and want to see cache sizes of those other accounts, you need to follow the same steps after logging in to those Windows user accounts.

That all there is to do. You’ve successfully changed the Google Chrome cache size in Windows 10. When you want to remove the cache limit on Chrome, just remove the disk-cache-size flag in the target field and you are good to go.

I hope that helps. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below and I will try to help as much as possible. If you like this article check out how to rename Chrome tabs.