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Serendipitous_friendb43e
Participant
October 24, 2026
Question

After effects maxed out my ram

Hello there, so, I downloaded after effects hoping to make tiktok edits like everyone does these days, but when I did when I pushed preview on the timeline it made my ram go up to 99% full and when I dragged a few effects in it said 99% full with 1 GB available and even 600 MB available my fellow editors say theirs is normal it was on a raw clip as well playing it back. I did edit the usage but even when I dragged in a effect it went straight back up. 

 

I have 32 GBs of ddr5 ram two 16 gb sticks t-force brand 6000MTz 

 

I tried everything but it keeps going all the way up to 99% I'm afraid of adding more effects that it would go to 100%

 

Thank you for your time. 

    3 replies

    CORCTON34033231
    Community Expert
    CORCTON34033231Community Expert
    Community Expert
    October 24, 2026

    Hi! These are the official steps to try in order, from Adobe's Memory and storage help for After Effects:

     

    1. Go to Edit > Preferences > Memory (Windows) or After Effects > Settings > Memory & CPU (macOS), and increase "RAM reserved for other applications" — this leaves more RAM available for the operating system and for applications other than After Effects.

    2. To free memory immediately, use Edit > Purge > All Memory & Disk Cache.

    3. Decrease the memory requirements for rendering a frame: the help notes these requirements increase with composition resolution, larger source images, and effects involving multiple layers, so previewing at a lower resolution will use less RAM per frame.

     

    Adobe's help also notes that After Effects temporarily stores rendered frames in the RAM cache, and when the RAM cache is full, a new frame replaces a frame cached earlier.

     

    Reference: https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/desktop/memory-storage-performance/memory-and-storage/memory-storage1.html

     

    If you try these, could you share your composition resolution and preview resolution? That will help tell whether it is just the preview cache filling up.

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    Serendipitous_friendb43eAuthor
    Participant
    October 24, 2026

    When I said I tried everything, that's what I meant by when I tried it. This was just from a raw clip, no effects or anything on it. Like I tried changing the usage of the ram, it still went all the way up as well. 

     

    I thought 32 was the recommended ram for AE, Like why would it do this?

     

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    CORCTON34033231
    Community Expert
    CORCTON34033231Community Expert
    Community Expert
    October 24, 2026

    补充一个可以区分的点：按 Adobe 官方帮助的说法，After Effects 在工作时会把已渲染帧暂存在 RAM 缓存中，RAM 缓存满后，新帧会替换较早缓存的帧。所以预览时内存占用升到很高，本身不一定等于故障或泄漏，这也与你说的“按下预览后就升上去”相符。

     

    你可以这样验证：预览到占用很高后，使用 Edit > Purge > All Memory & Disk Cache，然后看占用是否明显回落。如果回落，说明大部分占用是缓存；如果 Purge 后不预览也会立刻回到 99%，请把操作系统、After Effects 版本、合成与预览分辨率、原始片段分辨率贴出来，这样才能进一步区分。

     

    参考（本段已核实）：https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/desktop/memory-storage-performance/memory-and-storage/memory-storage1.html

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