Participating Frequently

Question

AE - Disk Cache - Available Space Issue - but plenty of space

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
March 12, 2025
3 replies
823 views

All of a sudden AE is giving me a "not enough available space" warning but the cache drive has 4TB open and it's just set to 100GB default. This just started. Reset prefs. I change the it another drive (at 1TB open) and it does the same thing. Even if I turn the the cache size to 20GB it still does it. No clue.

Error or problem

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dennism84601403

Participating Frequently

I ran into the same problem. MacBook Pro Tahoe 26.5.1 / AE 26.3.0. I’d worked on something where the files had used up most of the hard drive. After deleting those files, I was unable to avoid the disk space error -- despite the space showing up as available in Finder, etc.

The solution for me was to clear purgeable space on the hard drive. I used CleanMyMac, but there may be other ways to do this that are also safe (I’ve read that you want to be careful how you go about this on SSDs as clearing purgeable space in an ‘unsafe’ way disrupts TRIM functions, which help the longevity of your SSD.

I appreciate this may come across as an advert for some other software, but in my case, following the instructions in this post solved the problem:

https://macpaw.com/how-to/purgeable-space-on-macos

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dennism84601403

Participating Frequently

This is also useful information:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1qe6umz/why_is_the_available_space_in_disk_utility_and/

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defaultsfebk1ovzdic

Participant

I'm having this exact same issue, started yesterday 14th March. My Mac has plenty of space and AE is up to date (25.1). I've cleared the cache, restarted my mac many times. I thought I'd over extended it with some large files, but it happens upon opening the program now. I've attached a screenshot of the message I get, and also screenshots to show the current cache size (46gb), I've also tried increasing and decreasing it and get the same message.

I haven't tried changing the location of the cache, but I don't have an external hard drive so I believe it wouldn't make any difference. The available space on my hard drive is 86.8gb.

My main issue is I cannot open the file I was working on yesterday, it crashed while I was building it and it's a lot of work to lose if I cannot open it.

Ishan Y

Inspiring

Hey Roman,

Sorry for the issue. Please let us know which version of After Effects you're using. Also, have you tried increasing the Disk Cache (Edit > Preferences > Media & Disk Cache)? Please also try clearing your Memory and Disk Cache (Edit > Purge > All Memory and Disk Cache).

Thanks,

Ishan

R

romanf14444045Author

Participating Frequently

M1 Max Mac with Sonoma 14.6.1 and AE 25.1.0 Build 68. Like I said, I tried changing the disk cache both upwards and as low as 10GB. Gives the same error. Just started and nothing has changed. Done all the Memory and Cache Purge. Obviously the first time it took a bit to clean. Reset preferences as well. Switched drives. Point it towards a 4TB drive that is completely empty and it gives the same error.

nishu_kush

Legend

Do you mind sharing a screenshot of the error for clarity? Is this happening with all the projects or a specific one? If with a specific project, is it a template? In which version of After Effects it was created?

Let us know, we're here to help.

Thanks,
Nishu

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