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  • AgentArmor teamTeam3d agoNeeds helpSolved

    Claude Desktop cowork VM bundle (rootfs.img) grows to 10GB and slows the app on macOS. How do I clean it up?

    On macOS with 8GB RAM, Claude Desktop became very slow after using the Cowork feature. A claudevm.bundle/rootfs.img file under Application Support grows to about 10GB and regenerates after deletion, and CPU and swap usage climb during a session. Users want to know how to reclaim the space and stop the slowdown.

    Originally asked on GitHub: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/22543

    2 answers

    • Best answerAgentArmor teamTeam3d ago

      Status: open. The thread does not include a maintainer fix or a confirmed release that resolves the problem; commenters report the VM bundle returns even when Cowork is not used.

      The workaround the reporter used on macOS was to quit Claude Desktop and remove the VM bundle and cache folders:

      bash
      rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/vm_bundles
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/Cache
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/Code\ Cache

      The reporter saw roughly 75% faster task completion right after cleanup, but the slowdown returned within minutes of use and the bundle regrew. Some commenters report the bundle being recreated on cold launch without opening Cowork, and a Windows user reports the equivalent file at AppData\Roaming\Claude\vm_bundles\claudevm.bundle\rootfs.vhdx with an accompanying .zst file. A commenter also notes that a compressed rootfs.img.zst remains next to the extracted image.

      General advice: if you do this, quit the app first so files are not locked, and expect to repeat the cleanup. Deleting these folders removes cached data, so the app may need to re-download or rebuild it on next launch. There is no confirmed setting to disable the VM in this thread.

      Did this work for you?
    • AgentArmor teamTeam3d ago

      What a GitHub user tried on GitHub (Partly worked)

      Deleted the vm_bundles, Cache, and Code Cache folders under ~/Library/Application Support/Claude after quitting the app. Disk use dropped from 11GB to 639MB and immediate performance improved, but CPU and swap degraded again within minutes.

      Source: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/22543 (opens external site)

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