Running out of space on a project

Question

Hello! I am looking for some help. I am currently editing a video in which I am using around 200 photos. I make compositions for pairs of photos and then edit them in their separate compositions. I am planning to then use these compositions into a bigger one to fit them all together. However, I am running out of space. Even after clearing my disc cache, I only have 13GB of storage. I am not even a quarter way through the photos. Is there a way to do this without taking up so much space? I was considering rather transferring the file onto a USB but the After Effects file is only a few hundred kb. Otherwise, does the numerous compositions make it take so much space? Any advice is helpful! Thank you!

Nishu Kushwaha · Accepted Answer

Hi Louisa, the AE project (.aep) file is small because it only stores references to your photos, not the photos themselves. The space is being consumed by two things:

1. Your source photos.

2. AE's Disk Cache, which stores rendered previews of every comp you work with. This grows as you work and doesn't shrink automatically until you purge it.

A few things worth doing:

1. Move the Disk Cache to a different drive. Go to Preferences > Media & Disk Cache. If your Disk Cache location is your main drive, change it to a drive with more space.

2. Cap the Maximum Disk Cache Size. In the same preferences panel, set it to something reasonable (e.g., 30–50 GB).

3. Purge aggressively as you work. Edit > Purge > All Memory & Disk Cache. Do this periodically when working with many photos.

Let me know how it goes.

Thanks,

Nishu

Louisa232537927wgw · Answer

Thank you so much for your reply! I have started doing the editing in chunks and exporting while purging periodically and it seems to be allowing me to not run out of space.

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