Photoshop does not release disk space after closing files

Forum|Forum|12 hours ago
March 31, 2026
2 replies
41 views

Photoshop 27.3.1 / 27.4 has a problem where it does not release disk space after closing files. For example, editing 119 files that are around 200–300 MB eats 93 GB of disk space. Of course I close each file, so there is only one open at a time.

After closing Photoshop, the disk space is released, but this is very inconvenient. In some cases, I run out of space, causing the system to freeze, showing messages like “System has run out of application memory” and forcing me to quit applications.

OS X Tahoe 26.3.1

This is clearly a bug, as there is no valid reason for Photoshop not to release disk space properly.

Aneeq Mubashar

Participant

This is most likely Adobe Photoshop scratch disk behavior, and in 27.3.1 / 27.4 it may also be a bug/regression.

Photoshop stores temporary edit data on the scratch disk, and when you process many large files, it often keeps that space reserved for the whole session instead of releasing it after each file closes. That’s why the disk space only comes back after quitting Photoshop.

For 119 files at 200–300 MB, the scratch cache can easily grow very large, which explains the 93 GB usage and macOS memory warnings.

D

davidtavcarAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you Aneeq. I can understand scratch disk, but I can not understand why Photoshop does not release space after file is closed - I mean if I close file I am finish with it and I expect also Photoshop release space. Also today when disk are much faster, re-opening file is fast and there is no need Photoshop keeps cached version of it. With previous version of Photoshop I somehow could work weeks without OS complaints - now after a day of intensive work I need to close Photoshop from time to time, to release disk space. And I have 200gb free space. Adobe team should improve Photoshop behaviour.

D Fosse

Community Expert

This is normal and by design. Memory and scratch disk are both reused and recycled as you work, but not released until the application is closed.

This is what makes batch processing efficient. Requesting and allocating memory/disk space from the OS for every file would slow things down dramatically.

A scratch file of 93 GB is not particularly out of the ordinary.

The standard advice is to have at least 250-500 GB free disk space for the scratch disk.