Photoshop 27 uses up system data at exponential speed when converting from raw to jpeg Macbook M4Max

You need to specify how you batch and what this batch executes per file, step by step.

As long as each file closes before the next one opens, memory/scratch disk is reused and recycled. The net result is that memory/disk consumption should never exceed what is required for the one single biggest file. On my own systems I have never observed any memory/disk buildup, and I run batches all the time.

What we have seen occasionally, is that the GPU uses excessive memory which is not recycled, but just builds up. I need to emphasize again that this is not normal and I have never seen it myself. But we do have a number of posts from users indicating that this is something that can happen.

Photoshop's use of a scratch disk is a very special case. All other processes and applications will go to the system pagefile on disk when physical memory runs out. That appears to be what is happening here. A system with an integrated GPU (Apple silicon or Windows laptops) will perhaps be particularly vulnerable to this because the GPU uses shared system memory, the GPU doesn't have its own onboard VRAM.

In short, this needs to be broken down, and where that memory goes needs to be investigated. I'm not sure what tools are available in MacOS for this.