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K
Kéven
Participant
January 5, 2018
Answered

How to free Ram after closing a project in Photoshop

  • January 5, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 13728 views

Hi,

I am working on big projects with multiple stack photo and it take up to 18-25 Gig of ram per project. So when I want to switch on another project I try to close the project before openning the other one so it could Free up some ram, but it doesn't. I tried to purge the cache but it does nothing when no project is open. the only way to free the ram from photoshop is to close it and then wait for 1 min so the process can close and then re-open photoshop.

I want to know if there is a way to clear the ram when closing a project? so i can work on others projects

Correct answer Jeff Arola

If you have photoshop cc 2015 and newer then yes you can purge the ram while photoshop is still open.

 

From this post on photoshop.com by@J453

Photoshop: Is there a way to free up memory used by Photoshop? | Photoshop Family Customer Community

 

 

"New in Photoshop CC (2015) - If you hold the Option (Mac)/Alt (Windows) key while selecting About Photoshop, or hold the Option (Mac)/Alt (Windows) key and select Edit>Purge>All – we flush (release) all RAM and scratch disc in use by Photoshop."

3 replies

richardb60414725
richardb60414725
Inspiring
November 10, 2020

When you press Alt in windows you cannot select any menus or the about as they just close. So how do you do this trick?

 

Jeff Arola
Community Expert
Jeff ArolaCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 10, 2020

You need to click on one of the menus like Help, keep holding the mouse, press the Alt key, drag the cursor to the menu item you want and release the mouse button and then the Alt key. In this case click on Help, keep holding down the mouse, press Alt, drag the cursor to About Photoshop and release the mouse button then release Alt.

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 26, 2025

I disagree... theres every reason to release ram when after editing a big file and the system says photoshop is using 92%.
Now I want to open a small file and the system crashes.... thats not a slow down that a dead stop if ram is not released.


OK. We've seen a few of these cases, where the system can report RAM usage far above even the total installed physical RAM. In these cases it's not actually physical RAM, but virtual memory - in other words, the system pagefile. When that fills up, the whole system grinds to a halt. (It's been confirmed that it's not the Photoshop scratch disk, that doesn't show up as memory usage).

 

Normally, Photoshop should cap RAM usage to the amount you have allocated in Preferences - max 70% or so to leave enough for the rest of the system.

 

Now, the good news. In most of these cases, users have come back to report that a full and complete reset of preferences fixed it. That means not just clicking the "reset on quit"-button, but moving the whole settings folder to the desktop so that a new set can be built. This returns Photoshop to clean, out-of-the-box factory state.

 

The thing about the preferences file is that it contains a lot more than your own user settings. It's the whole application configuration, including lots of hidden parameters and secondary dependent parameters. Corrupt preferences usually look like application bugs.

 

Preferences are rewritten on every application exit, so are prone to corruption by irregular shutdowns. In addition, migrating preferences can be risky. Small errors accumulate, and with new application code latent problems can surface.

    Jeff Arola
    Community Expert
    Jeff ArolaCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    January 6, 2018

    If you have photoshop cc 2015 and newer then yes you can purge the ram while photoshop is still open.

     

    From this post on photoshop.com by@J453

    Photoshop: Is there a way to free up memory used by Photoshop? | Photoshop Family Customer Community

     

     

    "New in Photoshop CC (2015) - If you hold the Option (Mac)/Alt (Windows) key while selecting About Photoshop, or hold the Option (Mac)/Alt (Windows) key and select Edit>Purge>All – we flush (release) all RAM and scratch disc in use by Photoshop."

      davescm
      Community Expert
      davescmCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      January 6, 2018

      Well that's a new one on me Jeff - thanks

      Dave

        Jeff Arola
        Community Expert
        Jeff ArolaCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        January 6, 2018

        I don't think the feature was ever widely promoted and other than a small blurb in the whats new under Other enhancements at the bottom of this page, i couldn't find any reference to it in the actual online photoshop help.

        Feature summary | Photoshop CC | 2015.x releases

        davescm
        Community Expert
        davescmCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        January 5, 2018

        You don't need to free up the RAM between projects. Photoshop will hold on to RAM and use it appropriately for whatever you are doing and on whatever project it is doing at the time.

        The only time it will give it back is when the OS requests it or when Photoshop closes.

        Dave

        K
        KévenAuthor
        Participant
        January 6, 2018

        Actually Photoshop will not let the os take its ram back, the thing that will happen is the os will swap ram to the hard drive when there is not enough physical ram installed and THIS is the problem because the system become not responsive when the hard drive are saturated at 100%

        This is the result of opening 1 project, close the tab without quitting Photoshop and then opening another project

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