LM Studio models filling your disk: is ~/.lmstudio safe to delete?

Yes, but read this firstDiskmack safety tier: Caution

~/.lmstudio

Yes, you can delete LM Studio's downloaded models, and they are almost certainly what's filling your disk. Anything you remove can be re-downloaded from the hub later, so the only real cost is time and bandwidth. The one thing not to do is trash the entire ~/.lmstudio folder, because it also holds your chats and settings. Delete models from inside the app or from ~/.lmstudio/models and you keep everything else.

What it is

~/.lmstudio is LM Studio's home folder. The app keeps everything there: the local LLM weights you've downloaded, its caches, and its own data, including your chat history and settings. Nearly all of the bulk sits in the models subfolder, where each download is grouped by publisher and model name. A GGUF chat model is one large file; an MLX model is a folder of weight files that adds up to a similar size. Either way, you're looking at gigabytes per model, not megabytes.

It grows because local models are enormous and LM Studio never removes one on its own. A compact 7B or 8B model at a common quantization often runs 4 to 5 GB, mid-size models land in the 10 to 20 GB range, and the largest ones can pass 40 GB in a single file. The Discover tab makes trying models almost too easy: an evening of downloading three or four to compare can quietly add 20 GB or more, and every one of them stays on disk until you delete it yourself.

Is it safe to delete?

The models themselves are safe to delete. LM Studio doesn't need any particular model to launch, and everything you remove stays available on the hub, so deleting a model costs you nothing but the re-download if you ever want it back. That re-download is the caution: pulling a big model again means gigabytes over the network, which is slow on weak Wi-Fi and painful on a metered connection. Keep the one or two models you actually run, delete the experiments.

The rest of ~/.lmstudio is a different story. Your conversations and app settings live in there too, so wiping the whole folder deletes your chat history along with the models, and the history doesn't come back. Target the models, not the folder. Diskmack identifies LM Studio's model storage automatically and cleans it the safe way, moving files to the Trash instead of deleting them in place.

How to check its size

In Finder: In Finder, choose Go > Go to Folder (or press Cmd-Shift-G), paste ~/.lmstudio, and press Return. Select the folder, press Cmd-I, and let the Get Info window finish counting. Check the models subfolder the same way; it will account for nearly all of the total.

In Terminal:

du -sh ~/.lmstudio ~/.lmstudio/models

How to clean it

Open LM Studio and go to My Models in the left sidebar. The list shows every downloaded model with its size on disk.
Click the delete (trash) icon next to each model you no longer use and confirm. This is the cleanest route because LM Studio's own index stays in sync.
Prefer Finder? Quit LM Studio first so nothing is mid-download, then choose Go > Go to Folder and paste ~/.lmstudio/models.
Inside, models are grouped in folders by publisher. Drag the folders for the models you don't want to the Trash.
Leave everything else in ~/.lmstudio alone. Your chat history and settings live there and take almost no space anyway.
Empty the Trash once you're sure you won't want those models back this week.

Don't delete the whole ~/.lmstudio folder. Compared with deleting just the models, it saves you almost nothing and costs you your chat history and settings.

Will it come back?

Only when you download models again, and then all at once. Deleted models re-download from the hub at the same multi-gigabyte sizes, so one click in the Discover tab can undo an hour of cleanup. If you're still experimenting with local LLMs, expect this folder to swing between a few gigabytes and tens of gigabytes, and make a habit of deleting the losers after each comparison session. If the folder keeps outgrowing your disk, LM Studio lets you change the models directory from My Models, so you can point it at an external drive and keep your internal disk clear.

Common questions

Where does LM Studio actually store models on a Mac?

In ~/.lmstudio/models, grouped by publisher and model name. Older versions of the app used ~/.cache/lm-studio instead, so if ~/.lmstudio looks smaller than expected, run du -sh ~/.cache/lm-studio to check for leftovers from an earlier install.

Will deleting models erase my chat history?

No. Chats are stored separately inside ~/.lmstudio, not alongside the model files. Delete models through My Models or from the models folder and your conversations stay put. Deleting the entire ~/.lmstudio folder does remove them, which is why you shouldn't.

Can I move LM Studio models to an external drive instead?

Yes. In My Models, change the models directory to a folder on the external drive, then either move your existing publisher folders there or re-download the models you use. New downloads land on the external disk from then on.

Can I just drag the GGUF files to the Trash myself?

Yes, they're ordinary files. Quit LM Studio first so nothing is half-downloaded, then trash them; the app rescans its models folder on launch and the list updates. The delete button in My Models does the same thing with less chance of grabbing the wrong file.