One Premiere Pro File taking up 1 TB of space on brand new mac

[Elle25291188nok7]

Hi there! 

First off, sorry if this has been covered somewhere. I tried to look throught all the post but could not find this exact issue. I've also never posted on this so please let me know if I'm missing any information that I need to share. 

I have a brand new macOS Monterey, version 12.6. 64GB memory, with 1TB storage. Nothing else is on this computer, except my google drive which is where this premiere pro file is stored (this is a work file that must be accessible to different people).

I'm using the latest Premiere Pro 22.6.2 (Build 2).

This file has a lot of raw videos, effects, and two After Effect files linked to it with animations. 

I got a new macbook bc my old machine couldn't run this file. It would open but then not be able to render any of the parts or export it.

My new machine can render and export the file but it takes almost an entier day. And not only that, somehow I am almost entirely out of storage. I'm guessing that the cache is taking up all the space, but is it really possible that it can use up 1TB? (I have 145GB left).

Any help, suggestions or insights will help.

Thank you so much!

[Michael Grenadier]

please tell us the source properties of your media files and your sequence settings...Looking for the codec (also sometimes call compressor), pixel dimensions and framerate.     Although it's not always crucial, it's generally accepted that media should be stored on a separate drive from your startup drive.     And you're not telling us what model mac and how much RAM is installed.   This info will help us figure out what's going on and hopefully how to either solve or workaround the problem.  If any of this is unclear, post back.  

[Elle25291188nok7]

Hi mgrenadier!

Thank you for your response!

I'm attaching a screenshot of my sequence settings. I'm not sure what you mean by source properties of my media files. Is it something like the two screenshots I attached below (there are more of these, if so)?

I have a MacBook Pro (16in, 2021) and 64GB RAM

Thank you! 

  

[Michael Grenadier]

you found the right stuff.  But I'm not clear as to what's going on...    I've got a 2012 MacBookPro with a 500 gig Solid State Drive with 2 partitions so I can boot in either Catalina for most work and in Yosemite so I can run DVDSP for an ongoing job from hell...  and the Catalina partition is about 400 gigs and with a whole lot of apps, I've still got 170 gigs of free space available...  All my media and preview/caches etc are always kept on an external drive...   

Let me think about it Warren may have some ideas...  He's one of the experts here...  

I have seen an issue a few times on a couple of different macs (although not on an m-1 mac) where even when you deleted files, the space on the hard drive was not released...  The solution was to reinstall the OS which in the three times I've seen this, did not delete anything, just released the drive space and fixed the problem...

But before you do anything like that, make sure you have all your media backed up on an external drive at least once.  Backing up to 2 drives is an even better idea.     You need to remember that EVERY hard drive will fail (including solid state drives0.  It's a question of when, not if...  

[Warren Heaton]

Yes, video can require a large amount of storage.  Although, so can a lot of other things from iPhone and iPad backups to log files, cache files, broswer data, mail cache, iTunes temp files, and old updates.

Go to About This Mac > Storage > Manage to take a closer look at what's taking up the most space.

After Effects defaults to using up to 10% of the storage capacity as the Media Cache.  This can be adjusted as well as emptied under After Effects Preferences > Media & Disk Cache.

I really like Parellels Toolbox for quicly freeing up space on my Macintosh HD.  It's a $19.99 annual subscription.  If I were to click "Clean Up" right now, I'd free up 124.24GB.

[Elle25291188nok7]

Hi Warren! 

Thank you for your response! 

I did try that but the strange thing is the memory is all in tied into the applications. It's a new MacBook so I haven't put any documents or files on there except the adobe suite and google drive.  

[Warren Heaton]

Every so often, we see a technical issue that makes us say, "Yikes!"

Elle, this is a Yikes!!!

If this was Premiere Pro or associated large video files, you would see those listed in the Manage window.  Premiere Pro, Media Encoder, After Effects, iMovie and the other applications look to be about what we would expect.

Before using this Mac for anything else, I'd back up the most important files and run Disk Utility from macOS Recovery to repair your internal storage device.  Be preppared to have to erase and reinstall macOS if this does not resolve the issued.

Your device is probably still under AppleCare.  I would go ahead and use the Hardware Support option under About This Mac > Support.

Assuming that that takes you to the correct Apple support page for your hardware, scroll down to Get Support and click "Start Now".

It usually take about two to five minutes to to a live, level 1 support agent.

[Michael Grenadier]

Warren, as I said, I've experienced this issue (which may or may not be what's happening on Elle's computer) on a couple of different macs within the last 6 months with available space shrinking and deleting files making no difference.  One of these times it was a clients 2019 MacbookPro (I think) and we called apple care and they insisted that we wipe the drive and update the OS...  I updated the clone of the drive so it was completely backed up, booted in recovery mode and intially just reinstalled the preexisting OS.  Guess what, problem fixed and all the data, programs, settings etc were maintained...   And when the same thing happened on one of my macs at home, again I updated my clone and then booted in recovery mode and reinstalled the pre-existing OS...  I'm not a big one for constantly updating the OS if everything's working properly.  I also am careful about where I visit on the internet and downloading or copying any files that might have some kind of virus...  Of course, things could go south today, but I'm also very religious about making sure everything's backed up...  So just saying, I don't have a tremendous amount of faith in Apple support...   They have a script and usually stick to it...   

[Warren Heaton]

I agree, Apple support is hit or miss until you get to a level 2 agent and the level 1 support solution is all too frequently to update macOS which may no be needed.

I've seen "Other" get inexplicably large, but never the Applications folder.