depotcache and appcache

Updated: 2026-08-25

Steam keeps its own bookkeeping caches beside the client. They rebuild themselves, they are commonly a couple of gigabytes, and emptying them is the standard fix for a client showing stale store data.

depotcache

Where it is	`<Steam>\steamapps\depotcache`

A depot is a chunk of a game — the base files, a language pack, the 64-bit binaries. When Steam downloads one it caches the depot manifest describing it, and the files pile up as .manifest, one per depot version ever fetched.

They are never cleaned up, so the folder accumulates manifests for games long gone and for build versions replaced years ago. Steam re-fetches anything it needs.

appcache

Where it is	`<Steam>\appcache`

The client's own cache: appinfo.vdf and packageinfo.vdf, which hold the store metadata for everything in your library, plus librarycache, which holds the artwork — capsules, logos, hero images. On a large library the artwork alone is most of a gigabyte.

Emptying it is the usual answer to a client with a wrong-looking library: a game listed with the wrong name, missing artwork, or a store page that will not load. Steam rebuilds both files on the next start and re-downloads the images as it needs them.

How to clear them

Close Steam completely. Check that no steam or steamwebhelper process is left — the helpers hold these files open, and deleting underneath them is how the folder ends up half-broken.
Delete the contents of the two folders, not the folders themselves. Steam expects to find them and does not always recreate them.
Start Steam. The first launch is slower than usual while it rebuilds; that is expected.

Where to stop

These two, and nothing else in the Steam root. The directory also holds config, which has your login and library layout, userdata, which holds Steam Cloud saves and per-game settings, and the client binaries themselves. Advice on this subject gets vague fast, and the failure mode is a client that will not start or an account that has to be set up again.

One folder people reach for and should not: cefdata, the in-client browser's profile. Deleting it clears the cookies, which signs you out — and it does not free enough to be worth it.

Act on it

Vapor Storage Manager offers exactly these two folders and rebuilds the path from the Steam root at the moment of deleting, comparing it against what the scan found. It empties them rather than removing them, and it asks Steam to close through the client's own shutdown switch first.

Download Vapor Storage Manager