Questions regarding scratch disc and Photoshop and Illustrator

[ORA2020]

This is likely a stupid question, however I need to know. If I assign a empty 1TB internal M.2 NVME SSD in my desktop, do my adobe programs automatically send my active images there? Or do I need to placvew them there while I work on them? I keep reading about emptying your scratch disc but 12 months later there are two folders on the drive and NO images. Folders are "AI Temp" and PSAutoRecover" both of which are completely empty. 

Hence why I am wondering if or how these apps are utilizing the dedicated scratch disc I installed? If you do not mind explaining it to an old graphic hacvk I would appreciate it.

System spec:
win 10 fully updated
I7 10700k
MSI Z590 Pro-A MOBO
64GB Corsair Vengence Ram 4x16GB
RX590 8GB GPU - up to date driver after DDU then install
Corsair H100i Capellix AIO
1TB SN750 SE OS Drive

1TB SN750 SE Dedicated Scratch Disc
1TB Samsung 860 SSD internal storage drive
20TB External NAS server
All wrapped in a Corsair 4000D case with 4 case fans

[S_Gans]

Hi. Scratch disks are only in use WHILE you have an image open. It holds the parts of the file that aren't actively being worked on, so you can best utilize your resources RAM and GPU while working (simplified example: you're zoomed in on a large image and focused there. The data for the parts of the image you're not viewing is being held in the Scratch Disk location, until you navigate to another part of the image. Again - this is super simplified).
So, when you've closed your image, your computer no longer has to use RAM to work with it, and there's no longer a need for that scratch disk to be actively holding any of that information. 

We only want large, empty space with fast access, when we're working on the image, so we don't get lag when we move around and run our processes.