Participant

Question

Adobe cache takes up too much space in my macbook's system data

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
March 19, 2025
3 replies
5880 views

My macbook signaled that I was running out of storage space.

Going to check what all that space was taken up by, I notice that I have about 450GB of “System Data.”

Going to the Macbook's Library, I notice that inside the “Cache” folder is an “Adobe” folder that weighs about 350GB.

Is it possible to delete this folder? How do I limit it and prevent it from becoming too heavy?
Thanks

macOS

Glenn 8675309

Legend

delete it. You would set your scratch disk size in your preference file in photoshop.

D

Diego CataniaAuthor

Participant

Hi @hudsonjack, thanks you so much.

I closed all my Adobe Apps, deleted the contents of Caches/Adobe, reopened the various projects, and put a 30GB cache limit on After Effects and Premiere Pro.

I now have about 550GB free on my macbook.

Your tips worked! ❤️

D Fosse

Community Expert

Premiere Pro and Bridge will create huge caches over time unless kept in check. You need to keep an eye on them. Haven't used After Effects so don't know about that.

You manage the caches from the apps' preferences, and if you have other (internal) drives you can redirect them. By default they are in your user account on the system drive.

Sameer K

Community Manager

Hey, @Diego Catania. Welcome to the Photoshop Community. I'll help you figure this out.

Do you also use Lightroom on this machine? Have you recently worked with a large set of RAW images?

Also, is this a new machine, or was it set up using the Migration assistant?

Generally, the Camera raw cache is a cache, so it is safe to delete as it does not relate to your original images. It can be rebuilt automatically when you work on new images.

You can also set up the Cache limits for Camera Raw in Camera Raw Preferences > Performance.

Let me know how it goes. Thanks!
Sameer K

(Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

D

Diego CataniaAuthor

Participant

Hey @Sameer K! Thanks you so much.

No, I do not use Lightroom on this macbook.

I rarely use Photoshop Camera Raw.
Instead, I use After Effects and Premiere Pro very often.

I guess the bulk of the cache comes from After Effects, which, after Illustrator, is the software I use the most.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

The Adobe video apps (After Effects, Premiere Pro) can build Media & Disk Caches that can become very large. They are useful performance-enhancing caches that should be given lots of space on a fast volume, similar to how Photoshop benefits from having lots of fast space for its scratch file. To work best, these caches should have access to several hundred GB of fast free space.

If you have another fast volume that can always be connected when you use After Effects & Premiere Pro, like an external SSD, reassign the caches to it to get them away from the internal Mac storage. I have done this too. You can also click the buttons Empty Disk Cache and Clear Database & Cache to clear out what has accumulated on your Mac so far and start over on the external volume.

Similarly, in Camera Raw Preferences / Performance, you have control over the Camera Raw Cache. You can set a size limit, you can purge it, and you can relocate it to another fast volume. The Camera Raw cache can be much smaller than the caches of the video apps.

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