Is it safe to delete ~/.cache?

Review first. Likely recoverable, but it costs you something to get back. Read before you move it.

What it is

• A cache folder many command-line tools share, each in a folder of its own, for files they keep so as not to fetch or build them again.
• The XDG Base Directory specification describes this folder as “the base directory relative to which user-specific non-essential data files should be stored”.

Made by

Many command-line tools

If you remove it

• It is shared by many tools, so what removing it does depends on what is inside: every tool's folder in it goes at once.
• On the Mac this rule was checked on, the largest part was a downloaded app runtime (1.71 GB).
• A tool that keeps only files it can download again fetches them the next time it needs them; a tool that keeps anything else here loses it.
• The Puppeteer cache inside it is listed on its own, with its own rating.

How it comes back

• Put Back from Cleanup History while it is in the Trash.
• Otherwise each tool fetches again what it needs the next time it runs, if it can.
• Spaceific cannot say which tools those are.

Spaceific shows this rule for this folder in the app, checks it again at the moment you act, and moves only to the Trash, with Put Back. What Spaceific is.