diff --git a/src/index.ts b/src/index.ts
index 20c0e981..dccd1332 100644
--- a/src/index.ts
+++ b/src/index.ts
@@ -128,9 +128,6 @@ const typescript: PluginImpl<RPT2Options> = (options) =>
 					noErrors = false;
 			}
 
-			if (pluginOptions.clean)
-				cache().clean();
-
 			return config;
 		},
 
diff --git a/src/tscache.ts b/src/tscache.ts
index 49dc7b27..a9724d49 100644
--- a/src/tscache.ts
+++ b/src/tscache.ts
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 import * as tsTypes from "typescript";
-import { emptyDirSync, pathExistsSync, readdirSync, removeSync, statSync } from "fs-extra";
+import * as fs from "fs-extra";
 import * as _ from "lodash";
 import { Graph, alg } from "graphlib";
 import objHash from "object-hash";
@@ -127,6 +127,8 @@ export class TsCache
 				},
 				this.hashOptions,
 			)}`;
+		} else {
+			this.clean();
 		}
 
 		this.dependencyTree = new Graph({ directed: true });
@@ -146,26 +148,33 @@ export class TsCache
 		this.checkAmbientTypes();
 	}
 
-	public clean()
+	private clean()
 	{
-		if (pathExistsSync(this.cacheRoot))
+		if (!fs.pathExistsSync(this.cacheRoot))
+			return;
+
+		const entries = fs.readdirSync(this.cacheRoot);
+		entries.forEach((e) =>
 		{
-			const entries = readdirSync(this.cacheRoot);
-			entries.forEach((e) =>
+			const dir = `${this.cacheRoot}/${e}`;
+
+			/* istanbul ignore if -- this is a safety check, but shouldn't happen when using a dedicated cache dir */
+			if (!e.startsWith(this.cachePrefix))
 			{
-				const dir = `${this.cacheRoot}/${e}`;
-				if (e.startsWith(this.cachePrefix) && statSync(dir).isDirectory)
-				{
-					this.context.info(blue(`cleaning cache: ${dir}`));
-					emptyDirSync(`${dir}`);
-					removeSync(`${dir}`);
-				}
-				else
-					this.context.debug(`not cleaning ${dir}`);
-			});
-		}
+				this.context.debug(`skipping cleaning ${dir} as it does not have prefix ${this.cachePrefix}`);
+				return;
+			}
 
-		this.init();
+			/* istanbul ignore if -- this is a safety check, but should never happen in normal usage */
+			if (!fs.statSync(dir).isDirectory)
+			{
+				this.context.debug(`skipping cleaning ${dir} as it is not a directory`);
+				return;
+			}
+
+			this.context.info(blue(`cleaning cache: ${dir}`));
+			fs.removeSync(`${dir}`);
+		});
 	}
 
 	public setDependency(importee: string, importer: string): void