Where Does PlatformIO Store Platforms and Packages?
PlatformIO keeps platforms, toolchains and libraries in ~/.platformio, apart from your project folders.
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PlatformIO centralizes the heavy downloads in a .platformio folder in your home: platform frameworks, compiler toolchains and the global library registry. Projects themselves stay wherever you created them.
That folder grows into gigabytes across platforms, which is normal. Deleting a platform subfolder forces a redownload on next build. Project level libraries in .pio stay with the project and rebuild from its config.
Where PlatformIO stores this, by platform
~/.platformio
Platforms, packages and penultimate library cache. Project builds land in each project's .pio folder. Override the core directory with PLATFORMIO_CORE_DIR if home is cramped.
~/.platformio
Same layout on Mac. The VS Code extension reads this folder regardless of which window opened it, so one install serves every project.
%USERPROFILE%\.platformio
Same tree on Windows. Long paths bite with nested toolchains, so keep projects shallow or move the core dir to a short path.
Frequently asked questions
how do i free disk space used by platformio
Remove unused platform folders under ~/.platformio/platforms and stale packages under packages. Projects rebuild them on demand from platformio.ini.
where are platformio libraries stored
Global registry libraries sit in ~/.platformio/lib, while project specific ones live in the project's .pio/libdeps. The ini file decides which source wins.
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