Adobe Bridge - storage limits

[sjk1231]

I am curious to how much storage Adobe Bridge has? I am needing to store a lot of photos and videos on it.

[Lumigraphics · Accepted solution]

Bridge is a file browser. It just shows you what is on your hard drives.

[Just Shoot Me]

Absolutely None. Bridge is a Free program that does not need the user to subscribe to any subscription plan.

It is also just a File Browser, File Manager.

It can not do any edits to any file, other than standards File Manager task, without some other program like PS, CR, ID and so on. And even then 99% of the time it only Send whatever file to one of those programs. It does Not edit them itself.

[double_adobe]

Bridge is not "just a file browser." For each image file in a folder it generates up to three derivative files, depending on your settings: a preview image, a 100 percent preview image, and a thumbnail image. These are stored in a central cache folder that can take up considerable space, or can be stored "locally" (in the same folders as the images being browsed). Previous versions of Bridge limited the number of cache files to 500,000. Bridge 2021 (Version 11) limits the cache size to around 52 gigabytes. The upshot of all this is that for folders with thousands of large image files, it can take days for Bridge to generate a complete set of thumbnails and previews. To keep under the 52 GB (or 500,000-file) limit, Bridge will occasionally delete an entire folder of cache files, which can make for very slow folder browsing as well as cause a lot of disk churn and long save times in your storage array.

[newmethos]

This is a very helpful guide to Bridge's processing limits and how to structure my folders for a better Bridge experience. I only have 11,000 or so files in my image archive, but Bridge seemed to re-generate the thumbnails every time I touched the folder. I'm a nature photographer who also does VFX, my computer is very capable and the delay was infuriating. Thanks for this information.

[Lumigraphics]

You can set the cache size to zero. Also, both Windows and Mac use caching extensively, its a part of modern system design. Without caches, everything would be slooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwww.

And, yes, it IS just a file browser. That's precisely what Bridge does. Lightroom is a database-driven image manager and guess what, it uses caching extensively- hundreds of gigabytes if you have a big library.

Finally, no, Bridge doesn't take days to generate a cache, even from a large folder. I use Bridge in production and that's just flat-out false.

[sdmackie]

It can take several hours (major part of a day) to generate a cache, I've had to let it run overnight to complete for a folder with 219,000 images. I'm IT and trying to figure out the issues for our creative folks because Bridge has not been functioning well, if at all since we upgraded to 2020/2021. 

[Lumigraphics]

I would not recommend using Bridge with that many files in one folder. Even if that is on a fast SSD, performance will be awful. Divide it into smaller subfolders or find a different solution, possibly Lightroom or Photo Mechanic.

[sdmackie]

It is functioning better after I deleted thousands of .ds_store files off the server. I can now open it and browse normal sized folders without it crashing. That many files in one folder doesn't make sense for any app. What is a good recommended number of items in a folder for Bridge to work well? Also forgive my ignorance but if you change where an image resides, does that break InDesign files? I know it will breka the links but is it smart enough to be able to find that image or how nightmarish would that be? I work for a grocery company and our folks are working on our weekly ads. Thanks for the help, this has been a nightmare of an issue to resolve. 

[gary_sc]

Hi Sdmackie,

As far as how many images are too many, that's hard to really say because depending on how Bridge is configured, how much RAM you have as well as video RAM, how old/how new, etc., no specific number can be even guessed at. But without a doubt, what you had was an obscene amount too much :D.

What I'd suggest is to create a new folder and put maybe several hundred images in. If it's functioning OK, then dump another couple of hundred in and see how it works. Keep on doing this until things go south, then back off.

Meanwhile, absolutely, InDesign will not know what happened to a moved image and does not have the capability to self-locate the image. However, if all of the images for a given publication are all placed in the same folder, than if you link one, all the rest of them will also be linked. (I've occasionally had to do that.) Thus, as you're moving images, if you keep them grouped by subject and/or use. It will help focus the number of images in any given folder as well as make it easier to fix any broken ID links. Logical and well-created names can help on this a lot.

You do not say if you are on a Mac or not, but if you are, I strongly urge you to check out HoudahSpot. It is the best searching application on the Mac period. The extra value is that it can do Boolean searches as well as limited location searches (e.g., search only in "this hard drive" or "this folder" kind of thing). But, I'm sorry, if you're on a PC, I do not have any idea what's available on the PC for this level of searching.

[Lumigraphics]

The ds_store files are used for Finder settings, leave them alone if your designers use the Mac.

Do you have a standard filing system for ad images? I'd think by date would work better.

And yes if InDesign files are linked, changing the network location will break that link.

You do realize that Adobe does not support working directly off a server and does not recommend it? You are prime candidates for a DAM such as Cumulus https://www.canto.com/cumulus/ or Adobe Experience Manager https://business.adobe.com/products/experience-manager/adobe-experience-manager.html

[enigma^2]

I wished all you said is reality but for me it takes days ro make thumbs just of some 46 000 pics and films. 

[gary_sc]

Hi, @enigma^2 

Are you saying you have one folder with 46,000 images and films?

Why?

Do you not even have them sorted into folders by date?

How do you find anything?

[polyxo]

I wished one could work without folders in Bridge. We only use folders due to performance constraints. Finding files works great and navigation takes way less time without folders. Our files however are all very cleanly named (SEO optimized images for online usage). Typing a few letters is enough to find anything there is. But the system gets too slow with thousands of large psds. I see your point - but folderless isn't by principle slow. Hardware and software limits make it slow and poor naming conventions will make it unmanageable.

[Lumigraphics]

Bridge just shows the folder structure on your drives. That's done at the operating system level.

[polyxo]

>Bridge just shows the folder structure on your drives. 

Yeah, I know this – we deliberately use an option without a database and without import and export. I was answering @gary_sc  who stated that having 42000 items in a folder is a terrible idea. It is – but only because Bridge can't handle it, performance-wise.

It was a lot quicker for us to have all our files we use online in just one single folder. Using some letters of the product name / serial number or metadata filters would spit out relevant results immediately, without browsing nested folders by brand and series. Bridge search gets very slow if you extend it to child folders – and showing all items of sub-folders is basically the same (and gives you the same performance-drawbacks) as if you used just one large folder.

What iMatch does looks clever to me. It keeps all assets where they are (so there is no importing to a db) but the program uses a database to wire things together and to speed up search.

Currently, I use Everything Search with Bridge (Win) when I need to locate stuff quicky. It's a shame that Adobe isn't able to build a similarly slim and fast index – and that Adobe doesn't show its search results more intelligently /attractively. Blurred thumbnails for the first 100 milliseconds, until it can render larger previews.

[Lumigraphics]

If you need a database, use Lightroom.

[polyxo]

"If you need a database, use Lightroom." 

We need performance, not a database. Lightroom's strict catalogue would be just aweful in our multi-user environment. It got ruled out for several more reasons: The program isn't able to handle PSD without composite layer. It has far too narrow file type support for our needs. And its RAW centric approach totally doesn't fit our needs (we always start with RAW in ACR and always end with PSD and transparent PNGs in Photoshop). 

Such boilerplate comments don't help anyone.

[Lumigraphics]

This is the first time you've mentioned a multi-user environment. Its difficult to make recommendations if you jump into someone else's thread but don't tell us what you need.

In your case, neither Bridge nor Lightroom is the answer. You may need a multi-use DAM product like Cumulus or Adobe Experience Manager.

[polyxo]

>Its difficult to make recommendations if you jump into someone else's thread but don't tell us what you need.

I didn't ask for tool recommendation, though. I only got tempted to state that folderless isn't as bad as a fellow poster stated.

Yeah I know and have tested several of these Cloud DAMs. Such tools usually have a hefty monthly price tag and do little that actually helps us. This whole user-rights management and trivial format conversion resizing is pointless for our small team – a simple (locally synced) cloud service as the backbone works just fine*. With a cloud DAM we would still need Bridge to batch-process files in Photoshop.

*I know that you now say that Bridge doesnt't work with Cloud involved – but there are ways to deal with this. 

[Lumigraphics]

Ok I'm confused about why you are posting. Are you looking for help? Or do you just want to vent?

[gary_sc]

@Lumigraphics Ha! I think by posting that, you answered your own question.

[polyxo]

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@Lumigraphics wrote:

Ok I'm confused about why you are posting. Are you looking for help? Or do you just want to vent?

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Neither nor. I have stated that we all work differently, and that having thousands of files in a folder is not a terrible concept, generally. Large folders, however, don't work with Bridge, as this makes the program very slow. 

I mentioned a tool that lets me query my file system by file-name instantly – without a database. That saves me time when I'm too lazy to drill down the folder hierarchy that's necessary to yield acceptable interactive performance in Bridge.

You may not find my views interesting or useful. You're welcome to ignore them.