Are there any cons to preventing an app from writing to its caches folder?

[raghiid]

I've just used this terminal command 'chmod 444 ~/Library/Caches/com.spotify.client/Data' to disable Spotify from caching every song I listen to, they tend to add up. It seems to work, the caches size has moved in over 30 minutes above zero, whereas before it was 2-3GBs.

If it doesn't hurt, should I try it for other apps, e.g. my podcast app? (currently using an M1 Macbook)

 

[thebart]

I mean if the app continues to work, you can if your want to. I wonder though if it isn't writing to some other location instead , like the temp folder

 

[chrfr]

I've just used this terminal command 'chmod 444 ~/Library/Caches/com.spotify.client/Data' to disable Spotify from caching every song I listen to, they tend to add up. It seems to work, the caches size has moved in over 30 minutes above zero, whereas before it was 2-3GBs.

If it doesn't hurt, should I try it for other apps, e.g. my podcast app? (currently using an M1 Macbook)

Caches do serve a useful purpose, and some apps may not work as expected when they can't cache data, which could lead to data loss. Which apps do have issues, and when data loss might occur, will be difficult to determine. If your disk isn't severely running out of space, there's no reason to do this.