Answered

RAM Overload and out of memory (RAM) errors

Forum|Forum|7 months ago
December 5, 2025
12 replies
1646 views

My Workflow:
I work in the shoe sales industry. I use a 1000x1500px PSD file to scale down and position product photos. I then retouch them using Generative Fill, the Remove Tool, and other features. After that a create a copy backup file with all the photos of certain product, delete all the layers and continue with the next one. The source files I import are large (4480x6720px).

The Issue:
In previous versions of Photoshop (Pre v27), I had no RAM issues and could process a batch of 200 photos without stopping. However, with the new 2026 version (v27), my memory usage hits 90% after doing small batch of about 20-40 photos. Currently, the only solution is to close and restart Photoshop to clear the cache, I can also confirm using v26.7 version of Photoshop (2025) fixes the RAM problem.

Troubleshooting attempted so far:

Changed scratch disks
Adjusted max memory usage in Photoshop settings
Reset preferences
Used Edit -> Purge -> Purge All (this had no effect)

My Specs:

CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
MOBO: MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk
GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X 24GB GDDR6X
RAM: G-SKILL RipjawsV 64GB 3200MHz CL16
ram-overload-and-out-of-memory-ram-errors-v0-6y7cjqmo8d5g1_png.jpg

Windows

Correct answer udderball

This may or may not be relevant to your issue, but I discovered some things while troubleshooting yesterday that I strongly suspect have been a major cause for the sluggishness & memory usage I've been experiencing. These steps have so far mostly sent memory usage back down to normal levels (been less than 24hrs). These may be Mac-specific, and for context I’m on 27.7 but leaving this here in case others are dealing with the same.

Despite having reset preferences multiple times over the last few months & years, and despite having ran Adobe Cleaner + uninstalled + reinstalled all Adobe apps, there were a number of very old/obsolete Adobe files on my system.
1. Obsolete files in /Users/Shared: This contains the folders: Adobe, AdobeGCData, AdobeGCInfo, NGL. I deleted /Users/Shared/Adobe/NGL/.VU1JUmFuZG9tR3VpZEluY2FybmF0aW9u.dat and /Users/Shared/NGL/.VU1JUmFuZG9tR3VpZA.dat
2. Obsolete hidden files in ~/Library/Application Support: The "last modified" dates on these ranged from 2022 to 2025. They included: .ACCC_Lock, .ADCS_Lock, .CCH_GrowthSDKHelper_Lock, .CCH_NGLW_Lock, CCH_UpdateNotifier_Lock, .CCH_UPI_Lock, COSY_Lock. I deleted all of these.
Despite having granted full disk access to Creative Cloud, Illustrator, Indesign, and Photoshop, it seems Creative Cloud and/or associated apps did not have the permissions they wanted, and so were stuck in some kind of feedback loop where they made continuous failed attempts to reach Adobe servers. I am very opposed to granting so many far-reaching permissions, however I did methodically grant additional permissions to every possible Adobe app to try to resolve these issues. I granted the below permissions to any Adobe apps/services that weren't already added.
1. Full Disk Access
2. App Management
3. Local Network

Show previous replies

D Fosse

Community Expert

Quite a few users have had this problem, and almost all of them, at least those who came back here, report that a complete reset of preferences fixed it.

By complete I mean moving the whole Adobe Photoshop 2026 Settings folder to the desktop, so that a new one can be rebuilt (users > yourname > appdata > roaming > Adobe > Photoshop 2026). Just clicking "reset on quit" will only reset a smaller subset.

The preferences/settings contain the full application configuration, not just your own user settings. It is rewritten on every application exit, so are vulnerable to corruption by irregular shutdowns. Errors will accumulate over time and carry over, and new graphics code in a new version can bring out latent errors. Corrupt preferences tend to look like application bugs and are frequently mistaken for that.

Apparently, there is a particular vulnerability here that exposes something to easy corruption, given that a fairly high number of users see this. It's actually not Photoshop itself that uses this memory; it's the GPU performing (AI) tasks called by Photoshop. But the GPU should normally cap memory usage at a much lower level, and recycle before any problems appear.

As always, make sure to save out your custom actions, brushes etc so that they can be reloaded later. They will be wiped in the reset.

H

hannam72286915

I have had this exact same problem for couple of days now and I don't know what to do! Thank you for the info that downgrading version 26.7 could help for now.

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