Skip to main content
L
lastala
Participating Frequently
July 17, 2012
Question

Disk Cache piling up

  • July 17, 2012
  • 11 replies
  • 190552 views

Hi,

I have a "problem" with After Effects disk caches that don't get emptied from the application itself, but have to be emptied manually. They eat a lot of hd-space (multitude of GigaBytes).

What I found, that at least when I select clip(s) in Premiere Pro and make then an Adobe Dynamic Link => New After Effects Composition, this procedure starts to pile cache files to a location:

/Users/<username>/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects/11.0

to a folder called: "Adobe After Effects Disk Cache - <computername>.noindex"

That cache does not get emptied from anywhere in After Effects, selecting to empty the caches in AE does not remove them. So, I found them with a laborous manual search.

Now, I suppose (but don't know) that this folder can be deleted without any harm? Secondly, I would expect After Effects or Premiere Pro to be able to find and empty these caches on demand. This is not the first time I've noticed Adobe applications start to eat mysteriously hd-space, but it is the first time I'm able to locate where and from which process. Would anyone have a comment?

    11 replies

    S
    Shintaro24036242szj6
    Participant
    April 14, 2022

    I hate catching up onto old threads like this. But I'm having the same problem except I'm on windows

    does anybody know where it's located? This has been doing my head in and it's killing me

    ShiveringCactus
    Community Expert
    ShiveringCactusCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 16, 2022

    It could be unique to your computer.  Mine is set to a separate drive, but you should see it listed from Edit > Preferences > Media & Disk Cache:

    juliav11102175
    juliav11102175
    Participant
    October 19, 2017

    I just have to be a the person to post on old threads, but I've been having this problem since June, and todays new update for the 2018 version of AE CC just made me think I should just double check that my C (main drive) isn't chock full - which it is.

    I did the delete cache from inside AE and it didn't delete the 35GB of used date currently sitting in my user files - even though I manually set the cache folders.

    The main reason I noticed this was only because I opened a game and it said you are running low on usable memory. my C drive is only 118GB and it shouldn't be chock full of crap but for some reason after the update it's gone from having about 50gb of space free to 1GB and it's in major red zone.

    Dave_LaRonde
    Dave_LaRonde
    Inspiring
    October 20, 2017

    You may not want to hear it, but you REALLY need a bigger C Drive!  That's just tiny these days.

    As to your cache,  AE creates a cache vor EACH VERSION of the application.  The more versions you have, the more old caches.  So just hunt through those folders, find the old caches, and just delete them.

    juliav11102175
    juliav11102175
    Participant
    October 20, 2017

    Yeah I know that. Like REALLY know that aha. Nothing I can do at the moment since this is a laptop. I am thinking about getting the right upgrade but as it is a little pricey its just, at the moment, not required as I can run things decently. As decently as laptops come.

    (I have a Acer Predator 17 gaming laptop)

    Moved the folder to where I put it on the D drive (1tb hdd drive) its back to about 50gb free lol

    KazuT
    KazuT
    Inspiring
    December 23, 2016

    Biggest question: Is it safe to delete

    /Users/<username>/Library/Caches/Adobe/After Effects/<older version>/Disk Cache - <computer name>.noindex?

    Automorrow
    Automorrow
    Participant
    December 24, 2016

    Exactly. It's nice to see that this may help to be tested in my next attempt. I'm trying to fix the dragging mouse, frame, and unresponsiveness on a 2010 Mac Pro 12 Core with El Capitan and Adobe CS 6 Premiere Pro & AE. I would use Diskinventory X to find the so mentioned file and delete it .. a App that I have used before. My bigger concern is that it's my Nvidia GTX 570 card .. and my only other solution is to upgrade to a 980 Ti for $400. Anyone know of anything else I can use as a App that I can test for GUI GPU PCI stats  .. Activity Monitor and Console yet to provide me with explanations ... or I'm daft once again ..

    B
    blakec90442893
    Participant
    January 26, 2016

    I was having the same issue! So frustrating!!!! I would clean my cache but I would still only have 2 GB available on a 500GB internal hard drive. No matter what Program I cleaned the cache from it never changed and some mysterious object was eating up space on my hard drive!!! I followed all the forums that said to look for "media cache files" folder in Library/applicationsupport/Adobe/common/mediacachefiles, but I actually could not see the file itself..... I downloaded this program: Disk Inventory X‌ and is showed me exactly where things were being eaten up. I found a file that was extremely large, clicked "reveal in finder" and it took me to the "media cache files" folder for adobe that was actually hidden from my view in finder even when I searched for it...... Get this... It had 351GB of space... Yes, no typo... 351GB of space taken on my hard drive!!! No amount of cache cleaning cleared this up. So give this a try, it worked for me in about 5 minutes after spending days trying to figure out what was going wrong. 

      G
      gogolaz
      Participant
      March 19, 2016

      I've found exactly same thing. Over 100GB of junk from After Effect. All cache folders from previous versions where massive and not deleted after updating. Plus some other random folders all around.

      R
      Ryan06
      Participant
      January 6, 2016

      I can't fully delete either. However, if you use CCleaner for Mac/Windows, it'll find those Caches and you can delete that way.

        Statuqu0
        Statuqu0
        Participant
        May 19, 2015

        It's even worst that what it has already been witnessed !

        First of all, For me too the Preferences > Media & Disk Cache, then click the Empty Disk Cache button, isn't working.

        To help for this issue it's good to share that I have already change 4 times the name of my computer.

        AND it multiply the numbers of caches !!!! I had set a limit of 45 gb  and I rise to 3x 45gb of AfterEffect caches !!!

        How it could be that if my computer get renamed, it didn't automatically erase the old named-caches ? that is ashamed ;(

        At first, it was a really bad idea to connect the caches and the name of the computer ?:|? why did you do so developers ? It has no logics ...

        Second part of the issue : If like I did you set a limit of 45gb of caches at first, after as you reduce the size to 35 gb like it's set up for the moment on my computer, it won't ... and that's it's unbelievable ... reduce the size of the pre-existing caches !!!!! that's it's ashamed for a second times !!!!

        So I assume to have set 35gb limit of cache but if I were already full the caches this datas will never get erase !!!! dev plz ! dev plz ! what have you in mind ?

        To make a third part, as It have to exist, I will say also that a caches folder that is placed by default in an hided part of the computer is also tricky. You set it in the special hided library instead of the classic application support folder, where it certainly belongs to. Why ? Why did you put a file that has to be under the user control in a part where it hides itself from the user view ? un-logic

        At the end, I would positively say thank you for this huge software that is AfterEffect - but he needs improvement ! (why can't we animated mask point to set them timelines marks ?)

        PS : are you working in pair with Westerndigital, Seagate or Hitachi ? bcz it really seem's like you put a trick to push us to get more free space and more and even more than we have had, and then more again

        Statuquo

          S
          Scherba Media
          Participant
          November 12, 2014

          I just clear the cache folder and freed 107 gigs! Thanks for the post

            Josh_K-H
            Josh_K-H
            Participant
            June 11, 2014

            Could someone explain to me what exactly clearing your disk cache does? This sounds silly, but I want to make sure I don't lose anything important or whatever before I do it. Thanks!

            Todd_Kopriva
            Todd_Kopriva
            Inspiring
            June 11, 2014

            > I want to make sure I don't lose anything important

            You will not lose anything important.

            Clearing the disk cache just discards cached frames. The worst-case scenario is that After Effects will need to rerender a frame because it is no longer in the cache,

            S
            staus_me
            Participant
            August 21, 2013

            Just wanna add to this:

            Using the "whatSize" app to monitor my folders I found that I had both a 11.0 and a 12.0 cache folder each containing 50 gb cache. I'm guessing that the 11.0 folder is from AECS6 so I just deleted that. It could have been nice though if the CS6 uninstaller had removed that folder as well.

              Mylenium
              Mylenium
              Legend
              July 18, 2012

              Probably what Kurkoski said - if either of the applications/ processes is running, it locks the files and then the other can't delete them. You would probably be able to verify this by monitoring file access with tools like System Monitor....

              Mylenium

              Show more replies
              Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
              Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices