Cache file on external hard drive?

Forum|Forum|9 months ago
April 21, 2025
1 reply
430 views

Hi!

I eould be grateful for some help going about problems with a filled up internal hard drive. I am using Lightroom cloud edition. The cache file is getting quite large now when I’m reaching 1TB of stored pictures and it is filling up my computer’s internal hard drive. Can I move the chace file to an external hard drive without loosing any edits or encountering any other problems? I can't really tidy up something else on the drive which is rather small (old macbook pro) and the cache file is the largest thing stored besides software programmes that I can't really delete.

Thanks for any tips!

macOS

A

Aleke

Community Manager

Hi @sanna_ebba! Welcome to the community!

The Lightroom cloud cache stores preview versions of your images on your local device, so you can view them offline or quickly navigate your library. These are not your original files; they are smaller, lower-resolution versions that Lightroom uses for display and editing. So if you clear your cache file you shouldn't lose any of your edits.

Alek

*(If you mention me with an @, like @Aleke, I’ll get a notification and can respond faster.)*

S

sanna_ebbaAuthor

Participant

Thank you Alek! That sounds promising! What would be the change to my user experience? I hardly ever use Lightroom offline. But would this also mean that I can't see edited versions when I am online? Or only in some views, like the "one picture at a time" rather than the "library mode" when your browsing through the lot of pics from one day for example? (I hope this makes any sense!)

S

sanna_ebbaAuthor

Participant

Hello again! I just checked my settings and it seems I have already lowered the limit for photocache to a minimum (1 GB). What seems to take up most storage is the "Program and user data". (I add a picture even though in Swedish). How come this kind of data keeps growing over time? Would this be helped by moving the cache file to an external hard drive?

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