Where apps hide your files

Finding Canva's downloads and cache

Updated 2026-10-28 · 5 min read

Canva's Mac app asks you where to save every download, and your designs themselves live in your account, not on disk. This post shows how to find the files you saved and the app's own cache, and how to reset it without losing designs.

Where your downloads are

The Canva desktop app does not have one fixed download folder. Canva's help centre says the desktop app shows a Save As prompt every time you download a design, so you choose the folder and can rename the file there. The file is named after the design, so a design called "My Design" downloaded as a JPG becomes My Design.jpg, and a second download of the same design gets a number added.

So the first place to look is wherever that Save As window was last pointing. In practice that is often:

~/Downloads

Open it in Finder with Go > Downloads (⌥⌘L), sort by Date Added, and look for a name that matches your design. If you do not remember the name, search by extension instead: .png, .pdf, .mp4 or .jpg.

Canva in a web browser behaves differently. There the browser's own download setting decides, which is a separate setting in Safari, Chrome or Firefox.

Your designs are not on your Mac

This is the part that confuses most people. Canva designs live in your Canva account online. The desktop app is a window onto them, so there is no folder of editable designs to find, and no file you can copy to another Mac. What you can find locally are two things: files you downloaded, and the app's own data.

If you want a copy of a design on disk, download it from inside Canva in the format you need (PDF, PNG, JPG and so on). Canva documents no offline design folder, so do not expect to recover a design from the Library.

Two different Mac apps

Canva's desktop app from canva.com is a regular Mac app. The Canva listing on the Mac App Store is a different thing: Apple's App Store data shows it is Canva's iPhone and iPad app (bundle ID com.canva.canvaeditor), which runs on Apple silicon Macs. That version keeps its data in a sandbox container under ~/Library/Containers, not in the folders below.

Where the cache and app data are

Canva does not publish its folder names, and Canva was not installed on the Mac used for this guide, so treat the following as a guide to confirm, not a promise. A third-party test install of the canva.com app (version 1.125) used these names:

Path	What it holds
~/Library/Application Support/Canva	The app's main data and cache.
~/Library/Caches/com.canva.CanvaDesktop	Cache. A .ShipIt folder beside it belongs to the updater.
~/Library/Logs/Canva	Logs.
~/Library/Preferences/com.canva.CanvaDesktop.plist	Preferences.
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.canva.availability-check-agent.plist	A small background agent.

Check what exists on your own Mac with these read-only commands. Each prints only names that contain "canva", so an empty result means nothing is stored there:

ls ~/Library/Application\ Support | grep -i canva
ls ~/Library/Caches | grep -i canva
ls ~/Library/Preferences | grep -i canva
ls ~/Library/Logs | grep -i canva
ls ~/Library/Containers | grep -i canva

To see the size of the main folder:

du -sh ~/Library/Application\ Support/Canva

If your Mac uses a different name, put the one the commands printed in its place. du reads sizes only.

Resetting the app and clearing the cache

Your designs are safe in both routes below, because they are stored in your account. Expect to sign in again afterwards.

1. From the app. Canva's support team has pointed Mac users to Help > Troubleshooting > Reset App Data in the desktop app's menu bar, then confirming with Yes. This is the first thing to try, if your version has it.
2. By hand. Canva's help centre describes resetting the Mac app by deleting the Canva-related folders in your user Library while keeping the app itself. Quit Canva, then in Finder choose Go > Go to Folder (⇧⌘G), go to the folders you found above, and move the Canva ones to the Trash. Open the app again.

Move folders to the Trash rather than running a delete command, and leave anything without "canva" in its name alone. Leave the LaunchAgents file in place too unless you are uninstalling Canva; it is not a cache.

Moving to a new Mac, or backing up

There is nothing in the app's folders to carry across. On the new Mac, install Canva, sign in, and your designs, brand kit and folders appear from the account. Copy across only the files you downloaded yourself, which sit wherever you saved them.

If you downloaded designs to a folder that syncs with iCloud Drive or Google Drive, they are backed up along with that folder. The app's cache is not worth backing up, so excluding the Canva folders from your backups is reasonable.

Why the files are hard to find

Two things hide them. Downloads can be anywhere because of the Save As prompt, and the app's data sits under ~/Library, where Spotlight and Finder searches leave results out. The name of a downloaded file is usually the design's title, which people forget, and repeat downloads end up as My Design (1).png and similar.

Finding it again later

Type a fragment of the design title into Everywhere to list every download with that name, wherever the Save As window put it; typing canva shows the app's own folders. Your Downloads folder and the App Store version's container are covered once Everywhere has Full Disk Access. Press ⌘↵ to reveal a result in Finder. It matches file names only, not the text in a PDF, so search for the title you gave the design.

Common questions

Where does the Canva desktop app save downloads on a Mac?

Canva's help centre says the desktop app shows a Save As prompt for each download, so it goes wherever you chose, often your Downloads folder. The file is named after the design, such as My Design.jpg.

Are my Canva designs stored on my Mac?

No. Designs are stored in your Canva account, and the app shows them from there. Only files you downloaded and the app's cache are on your Mac.

How do I clear the Canva cache on a Mac?

Try Help > Troubleshooting > Reset App Data in the desktop app. Otherwise quit the app, move the Canva folders in your user Library to the Trash and reopen it; Canva says your designs are not affected.

Where is the Canva cache folder?

Canva does not publish the path. On the canva.com app it is usually ~/Library/Application Support/Canva and ~/Library/Caches/com.canva.CanvaDesktop; run ls ~/Library/Caches | grep -i canva to confirm on your Mac.