Clear Google Cache with Powershell
Yesterday I had to clear out a few users’ google chrome cache. It was a little aggravating going computer by computer. We were doing this because recently a core web app was updated. The application left traces of itself in the Google Chrome Cache and it caused all kinds of problems. So the last few I looked for a way to do it with PowerShell. Long and behold you can Clear Google Cache with Powershell.
The Script
We are starting with the script, to begin with. We are doing this because the core of this script is wrapped around a remote template I use. I will cover the template later down the road.
Function Clear-SHDGoogleCache {
param (
[parameter(
ValueFromPipeline = $True,
ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName = $True,
HelpMessage = "Hostname of target computer",
Mandatory = $true)][alias('ComputerName')][String[]]$Computer,
[Parameter(
HelpMessage = "Allows for custom Credential.")][string[]]$username,
[Parameter(
HelpMessage = "Allows for custom Credential.")][System.Management.Automation.PSCredential]$Credential
)
begin {
if ($null -eq $username) { $username = "*" }
}
process {
foreach ($PC in $Computer) {
foreach ($user in $username) {
$Parameters = @{
Computername = $PC
ScriptBlock = {
if ($username -ne "*") {
if (Test-Path C:\Users\$user) {
Remove-Item "c:\users\$user\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\default\cache\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "c:\users\$user\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\default\code cache\js\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "c:\users\$user\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\default\media cache\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "c:\users\$user\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\Default\Service Worker\CacheStorage\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "c:\users\$user\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\Default\Service Worker\ScriptCache\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
}
else {
Write-Error "$user is not present."
}
}
else {
Remove-Item "c:\users\*\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\default\cache\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "c:\users\*\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\default\code cache\js\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "c:\users\*\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\default\media cache\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "c:\users\*\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\Default\Service Worker\CacheStorage\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "c:\users\*\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\Default\Service Worker\ScriptCache\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
}
}
Asjob = $true
JobName = $PC
}
if ($PSBoundParameters.ContainsKey('Credential')) {
$Parameters | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Credential -Value $Credential
}
if (Test-Connection -ComputerName $PC -Count 1 -Quiet) {
try {
Invoke-Command @Parameters
}
catch {
Write-Warning "$PC Invoke Command Failed"
}
}
else {
Write-Warning -Message "$PC is offline"
}
}
}
}
end {}
}
The Breakdown
Let’s break down the script and see what is needed and how it is needed. The first thing you will notice is the computer and the user are both lists of strings. [String[]]. This means I will have to loop through each one. This is important because this means you can target a single user on multiple machines or multiple users on a single machine or both. The second thing I want to point out is the credentials. So, if you are not in admin mode, you can deploy the script with your admin creds, or with the local admin creds.
The Username is not a required item. Why did I do this? The simple answer is, if you don’t put a username, then it will clear every user’s google chrome cache. Notice in the “begin” area, we have if null is equal to username, then we want the username to be *. Later we ask, if the username is not equal to *, then we use the user. If not, we use the * which will go through all the users at once. Also notice in the do the user, we test if the user exists. If it doesn’t we deploy an error, if it does, we do our work.
if ($null -eq $username) { $username = "*" }
if ($user-ne "*") { do the user
if (Test-Path C:\Users\$user) { Its there, lets go for it.} else { Error will robison.}
} else {do everyone}
The Core
At the core of this script is the remove-item blurp. We are going through each user data area and clearing out the different types of cache. There is the default cache, code, media, storage, and script caches. Each of these folders will have folders inside of them. So we need to recurse. We want to force it and we don’t care about the errors as some cache will not delete while chrome is active. Could I have added a kill chrome, yes, but why? if the end-user is working in chrome, this is going to be disruptive and force them to restart chrome. Lets look at the code.
Remove-Item "c:\users\$user\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\default\cache\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "c:\users\$user\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\default\code cache\js\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "c:\users\$user\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\default\media cache\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "c:\users\$user\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\Default\Service Worker\CacheStorage\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Remove-Item "c:\users\$user\appdata\local\google\chrome\user data\Default\Service Worker\ScriptCache\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
That’s all the code you will need. If you selected not to use username the $user will turn into * which will do every user, including default. if you have something like sccm, pdq, intune, ninja, pulse, etc, then just user this part of the code with * instead of user. This will clear the cache as needed.
We close it all up and send it as a job to the machine in question. This way we are not stuck on each computer. It speeds things up. With Powershell 7, you can loop with a number of objects that you want which would speed this up even more.