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The Runpod SDK’s clean() function helps maintain the health of your Serverless worker by removing temporary files and folders after processing completes. This is particularly important for workers that download large assets or generate temporary artifacts, as accumulated data can lead to DiskQuotaExceeded errors over time.

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Import the clean() function

To use the clean() function, import it from the utils.rp_cleanup module: 
from runpod.serverless.utils.rp_cleanup import clean

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Default behavior

When called without arguments, clean() targets a specific set of default directories for removal:
  • input_objects/
  • output_objects/
  • job_files/
  • output.zip
These are standard locations used by various SDK operations, and cleaning them ensures a fresh state for the next request.

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Custom cleanup

If your handler generates files in non-standard directories, you can override the default behavior by passing a list of folder names to the folder_list parameter. 
clean(folder_list=["temp_images", "cache", "downloads"])

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Use clean() in your handler

You should integrate cleanup logic into your handler’s lifecycle, typically within a finally block or right before returning the result. 
import runpod
from runpod.serverless.utils.rp_cleanup import clean
import requests
import os


def download_image(url, save_path):
    response = requests.get(url)
    if response.status_code == 200:
        with open(save_path, "wb") as file:
            file.write(response.content)
        return True
    return False


def handler(event):
    try:
        image_url = event["input"]["image_url"]

        # Create a temporary directory
        os.makedirs("temp_images", exist_ok=True)
        image_path = "temp_images/downloaded_image.jpg"

        # Download the image
        if not download_image(image_url, image_path):
            raise Exception("Failed to download image")

        # Process the image (your code here)
        result = f"Processed image from: {image_url}"

        # Cleanup specific folders after processing
        clean(folder_list=["temp_images"])

        return {"output": result}
    except Exception as e:
        # Attempt cleanup even if an error occurs
        clean(folder_list=["temp_images"])
        return {"error": str(e)}


runpod.serverless.start({"handler": handler})

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Best practices

To ensure reliability, always call clean() at the end of your handler execution. We recommend wrapping your cleanup calls in a try...except or finally block so that disk space is recovered even if your main processing logic fails. Be cautious when adding custom folders to the cleanup list to avoid accidentally deleting persistent data, and consider logging cleanup actions during development to verify that the correct paths are being targeted.