title: Cleaning Maven m2e .cache directory
body: <p>My Maven installation (Windows 7 64-bit) has a <code>.cache</code> directory that is almost 3.5GB! It contains only a <code>m2e</code> directory. (I'm running Eclipse 4.3M7 with m2e.) Surely all the things inside aren't needed at present, and moreover I don't even know what this stuff is! I could find no Maven documentation of a <code>.cache</code> directory online.</p>
  
  <p>So what are the <code>.m2/repository/.cache</code> and <code>.m2/repository/.cache/m2e</code> directories? Why do they have so much stuff from years ago? How do I dispose of all the stuff that's not needed anymore?</p>