Preview Container
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview stores Preview’s sandboxed app data so the built-in macOS PDF and image viewer can save its working files and settings.
What is Preview Container?
This folder is the sandbox container for Preview, Apple’s built-in macOS app for opening and working with PDFs and image files. macOS uses app containers to keep an app’s documents, temporary working data, and some internal settings separated from other apps. For Preview, this can include data related to viewing, annotating, signing, exporting, and otherwise handling PDFs and images on your Mac. Users most often encounter this folder only when reviewing storage, troubleshooting an app problem, or cleaning up Library data manually. Removing the container can reset Preview-related local data inside the sandbox and may cause the app to recreate the folder the next time you open a PDF or image.
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Safety overview
Status: Mostly safe
This folder belongs to Apple Preview, a standard macOS app used to view and edit PDFs and images. The location is consistent with a normal sandbox container for a built-in app. Deleting container data is not the same as uninstalling Preview, but it can remove local app data, reset preferences stored inside the sandbox, and disrupt recent working state for PDFs or images until the folder is recreated.
Recommendation: Keep this folder during normal use. If Preview is malfunctioning and you are specifically troubleshooting it, you can remove the container only after quitting Preview and understanding that local app data inside the sandbox may be reset. If you do nothing, macOS will continue using the folder normally.
File path
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview
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