Clearing Chrome’s cache can fix a website that shows a stale page or refuses to log in, because the browser then loads the site fresh. A Chromebook that keeps warning that storage is full is a different problem, and emptying the browser cache alone almost never fixes a full drive. The steps below follow the same order as the video: the cache first, then the storage cleanup.
The steps and labels below are from ChromeOS 154. Google moves Settings pages around between releases, so an older or newer Chromebook may put a row in a slightly different place.
How to Clear the Browser Cache
The browser cache is a folder of temporary files Chrome saves so websites load faster on your next visit. Images, scripts, and fonts get stored locally so the browser does not have to download them again. Most of the time this is helpful, but a cached file can go stale, which is why a page sometimes looks broken until you clear it.
In Chrome, open the three-dot menu at the top right and click Delete browsing data. The same row shows the keyboard shortcut, ctrl shift backspace , which opens the same place in one step. Chromebooks do not have a dedicated Delete key, so this is the ChromeOS version of the Ctrl+Shift+Delete shortcut you may know from other platforms. Either way, Chrome opens its Settings in a new tab with the Delete browsing data dialog on top.
The time range is a row of buttons at the top of the dialog: Last 15 min, Last hour, Last 24 hours, Last 7 days, and More. Click More and pick All time. A short range such as Last hour only removes files cached in that window, and the stale file behind a broken page may be older than that. Tick Cached images and files; the line under it shows how much space the cache takes. The first time you open it, Chrome ticks Browsing history and Cookies and other site data, so untick both. Unticking history keeps your history, and unticking cookies keeps you signed in to your websites. Then click Delete data.
Chrome shows a short “Deleted” message on the Privacy and security page. Close that Settings tab with ctrl w , then reload the page that was misbehaving, and Chrome downloads fresh copies of its files. Chrome remembers the range and the ticks you chose, so check them again the next time you open the dialog.
The browser cache exists to make sites faster, so clearing it makes your next few visits slightly slower while it refills. It is also small: 479 MB at All time on the Chromebook in the video, so on a full drive most of the used space is elsewhere.
Clear One Site’s Data
If only one website is broken, you can clear that site’s data without touching the rest. Open the site, click the tune icon to the left of the address bar, choose Site settings, and use the option there to delete the site’s data. That removes the cookies and stored data for that one site and signs you out of it, while every other site keeps you signed in. It does not clear that site’s cached images and files, so if a stale page survives it, use the All time cache step above.
How to Check Your Chromebook Storage
Before you start deleting things to free up space, find out what is using the drive. Click the time at the bottom right of the screen, then click the gear to open Settings. In the sidebar on the left, click System preferences (its subtitle reads “Storage, power, language”), and under Storage and power, click Storage management. The bar at the top shows the space in use and the space available, and the rows below show where it went: My files, Browsing data, Apps, Offline files, Linux storage, and System, followed by User data encryption and External storage preferences.
Most rows take you to the place where that space can be freed. My files opens the Files app, Browsing data opens Chrome’s Delete browsing data dialog, and Apps opens the app list in Settings. Offline files and Linux storage open their own settings pages.
The System row is the one you cannot shrink. ChromeOS keeps two copies of the system so an update can fall back to the old one if it fails, and the System figure varies by device: often 15 GB or more, and 60.6 GB on the 256 GB Chromebook in the video. If your device shipped with a small drive, that reserved chunk is a big reason the free space looks smaller than the spec sheet promised. We break down where those gigabytes go in the 64GB Chromebook storage trap.
Delete Large Files and Empty the Trash
The Files app usually holds the most space you can get back. Click the My files row, and the Files app opens. Click Downloads in the left column, because everything you save from Chrome lands there and ChromeOS does not clear it on its own. Click the Size column header to put the biggest files at the top (folders stay above the files). Select a file you no longer need, then click the trash icon in the toolbar at the top to move it to the trash.
Moving a file to the trash does not free the space yet. A banner in the Trash says “Files in the trash for more than 30 days will be automatically deleted,” so to get the space back now, click Trash in the left column, then click Empty trash now at the top. A dialog asks “Permanently delete these files?” Confirm with Delete forever. This step cannot be undone, so check the Trash for anything you want to keep first.
Close the Files app, and the My files row in Storage management gets smaller. In the video it dropped from 6.1 GB to 3.6 GB after one 2.5 GB file went.
Clean Up Offline Google Drive Files
Offline files are copies of your Google Drive files kept on the Chromebook so you can open them without an internet connection. Click the Offline files row, and the Google Drive page opens. It shows a File sync switch and, under Offline storage, how much space the copies use. The Clean up storage button stays grey while File sync is on, because ChromeOS keeps syncing your My Drive files to the Chromebook.
Turn the File sync switch off. A dialog warns that new files in My Drive will stop syncing automatically to this Chromebook; click Turn off. Now click Clean up storage, then click Clean up storage again in the confirmation dialog. In the video, offline storage went from 206 MB to 0 B.
Your files stay in Google Drive; this only removes the local copies. The dialog itself notes that some files will still be available offline. If you want offline access back later, turn File sync on again, and ChromeOS refills the offline copies over time.
Shrink the Linux Disk
Turning on Linux to run desktop apps or learn to code sets aside a dedicated slice of your drive for it. That reserved space counts against your free storage even when the Linux side is nearly empty. Go back to Storage management with the back arrow and click Linux storage; the row shows once you set up Linux. It opens the Linux development environment page, which also lives under About ChromeOS in the Settings sidebar.
Next to Disk size, click Change. The Resize Linux disk dialog opens with a slider. Click lower on the slider, or drag it to the left, for a smaller disk; the arrow keys move it in small steps. The dialog notes that at least 10.0 GB of space is recommended for Linux. Click Resize, and the new size applies at once. Shrinking the disk hands space back to ChromeOS without losing your Linux setup.
If you no longer use Linux at all, removing it returns the whole allocation in one step. The same page has a Remove Linux development environment row with a Remove button, which deletes the environment and everything inside it. Treat it as permanent: removing the environment erases any files and apps you kept there, so back up anything you care about first.
Clear an Android App’s Cache
Android apps keep their own cache, and apps that stream video or load lots of images tend to build the largest ones. The buttons that clear it are in Android Settings, not on the ChromeOS app page. ChromeOS’s own Manage your apps page shows an app’s size and stored data but has no clear buttons.
In the Settings sidebar, click Apps. Click Manage Google Play preferences, then click Android Settings. A separate Android Settings window opens.
In the Android window, click Apps. If you opened an Android app recently, the page lists it under “Recently opened apps,” followed by a See all apps row with your app count in it (See all 15 apps in the video). If not, the row reads All apps, with the number of installed apps under it. Either row opens the full list. Click the app you want to clean up (the video uses Clock, but any app works), then click Storage & cache on its App info page.
The Storage page has two buttons. Clear cache deletes only temporary files and keeps your logins and settings; it turns grey once the cache is empty. Clear storage resets the app to a fresh install, deleting its data and signing you out. Start with Clear cache, since it is the low-risk option, and leave Clear storage alone unless you want a fresh start with that app.
Uninstalling an Android app you never use frees its whole size, not only its cache, and you can always reinstall from the Play Store later. An uninstalled app takes its offline data with it, so do not remove something mid-project.
When the Drive Itself Is Too Small
If the drive fills up again within days of this cleanup, the space is going to things this checklist cannot remove for good. ChromeOS features such as the Android subsystem and, more recently, an on-device AI model that Chrome downloads on its own each claim local storage; 9to5Google reports that model at about 4 GB. When several of these stack up on a small drive, clearing caches only buys a few days.
The durable fix in that situation is more storage. Some Chromebooks accept a microSD card or an external SSD to expand space cheaply, and a few have user-accessible drives you can upgrade outright. Our roundup of Chromebooks with upgradeable storage covers which models let you do that, and if you are shopping to avoid the problem entirely, the Chromebook Comparison Chart lets you compare models by storage capacity. Budget Chromebooks hit the same kind of limit on RAM, covered in the 4GB Chromebook RAM trap.
Powerwash as a Last Resort
A Powerwash resets a Chromebook to factory condition when it is badly cluttered or misbehaving and nothing else has helped. Anything stored locally, including files, apps, and local accounts, is erased. Because ChromeOS syncs your settings, extensions, and Drive files to your Google account, signing back in restores most of your setup, but only the parts that were synced. To start one, sign out, then press ctrl shift alt r on the sign-in screen and follow the prompts.
Powerwash is overkill for a simple storage crunch, and you should not use it as a routine cleanup. Use it when the machine stays unstable after the cleanup above, or when you are handing the Chromebook to someone else.
