Remove cache and old extensions under "~/.vscode-server/" on your Linux server

README.md

If you often connect to your Linux server using VSCode, the "~/.vscode-server/" folder (and sometimes the ~/.cache/ folder too) can get very large because VSCode:

1. Does NOT clean its download cache after installing extensions;
2. Does NOT delete old extensions after updating them;
3. Does NOT remove old VSCode servers after installing a new version.

If your server storage space is limited, you might consider cleaning "~/.vscode-server/" (and ~/.cache/) regularly using the bash script I wrote. Simply run the following command:

curl -sL https://gist.githubusercontent.com/XDflight/5f3509eb84fc282b88059c909036f5bc/raw/fe2a3e7dab19160c17efc7025d138f5350964c0f/clean_vscode-server.sh | bash -s

This command will automatically download and run the script for you.

I programmed this thing because CMU only provides each student 2GB of AFS cloud storage in normal circumstances, unless maybe the courses you take requested for more, and since I often use VSCode to connect to Virtual Andrew via SSH to do homework, my "~/.vscode-server/" gets too big now and then that I have to clean it manually to keep my storage usage within the quota. This script automates the process to make my life easier.

clean_vscode-server.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Discussions at: 
# - https://gist.github.com/XDflight/5f3509eb84fc282b88059c909036f5bc
# - https://www.reddit.com/r/vscode/comments/1ocqftt/a_tool_that_helps_you_free_up_vscodeserver_if_you/

rm -rf ~/.cache 2> /dev/null

if [ ! -d ~/.vscode-server ]; then
  echo "\"~/.vscode-server\" does not exist."
  exit 0
fi

pkill -u "$USER" -f '\.vscode-server'

shopt -s extglob nullglob

rm -rf ~/.vscode-server/data/CachedExtensionVSIXs
rm -f ~/.vscode-server/.cli.*.log

if [[ -f ~/.vscode-server/cli/servers/lru.json ]]; then
  SERVER_VERSION=$(grep -oE '[0-9a-f]{40}' ~/.vscode-server/cli/servers/lru.json | head -n1)
  echo "[\"Stable-$SERVER_VERSION\"]" > ~/.vscode-server/cli/servers/lru.json
  rm -rf ~/.vscode-server/cli/servers/Stable-!($SERVER_VERSION)
  rm -f ~/.vscode-server/code-!($SERVER_VERSION)
else
  rm -rf ~/.vscode-server/cli
  rm -f ~/.vscode-server/code-*
fi

rm -rf ~/.vscode-server/extensions/*.vsctmp

declare -A exts
for lsout in $(cd ~/.vscode-server/extensions && ls -rvd */); do
  ext_fullname=${lsout::-1}
  
  ext_version=$(grep -oP '\-\d+\.\d+\.\d+' <<< "$ext_fullname")
  # Skip extensions whose directory names do not end in semver
  [[ -z "$ext_version" ]] && continue
  
  ext_name=${ext_fullname/$ext_version}
  ext_version=${ext_version:1}
  
  if [[ -n "${exts[$ext_name]+isset}" ]]; then
    rm -rf ~/.vscode-server/extensions/$lsout
  else
    exts[$ext_name]=$ext_version
  fi
done

shopt -u extglob nullglob