After Effects & Premiere Pro Are Eating Your Mac's Storage. Here's How to Fix It.

Updated March 2026 · 7 min read

If you edit video on a Mac, you've probably noticed your storage disappearing. A 256 GB MacBook can fill up from a single project. Even a 1 TB Mac Mini will struggle if you work with 4K or higher.

The culprit: Adobe's media cache system. It's designed to make playback smoother, but it never cleans up after itself.

Where Adobe hides its cache

AppCache locationTypical size
Premiere Pro~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Media Cache Files/10–80 GB
After Effects~/Library/Caches/Adobe/After Effects/5–50 GB
After Effects Disk Cache~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Media Cache/10–100 GB
Photoshop scratch/tmp/ + scratch disk2–20 GB
Media EncoderShares Premiere's media cacheIncluded above

Combined, these can easily hit 50–200 GB on a busy editing machine.

How to clear Adobe cache manually

Premiere Pro

  1. Open Premiere Pro
  2. Edit → Preferences → Media Cache
  3. Click "Delete" next to "Remove Media Cache Files"
  4. Select "Delete all media cache files from the system"

After Effects

  1. Open After Effects
  2. Edit → Purge → All Memory & Disk Cache
  3. Also: Preferences → Media & Disk Cache → Clean Database & Cache

Nuclear option (delete cache folders directly)

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Common/Media\ Cache\ Files/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/Common/Media\ Cache/*
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/Adobe/After\ Effects/*

This is safe. You'll just need to re-conform media when you reopen projects (Premiere rebuilds peak files and indexes automatically).

Other creative apps that hoard cache

DaVinci Resolve

Cache lives in ~/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/. Resolve's optimized media and render cache can use 20–50 GB. Clear via Project → Project Settings → Master Settings → Working Folders → Delete Optimized Media.

Final Cut Pro

FCP stores render files inside the library bundle. Right-click your library → "Delete Generated Library Files" to reclaim space. Can save 10–30 GB per library.

Logic Pro

Audio files, bounces, and freeze files in ~/Music/Logic/. Check Project → Clean Up for unused audio.

Prevent cache from filling your disk again

  1. Set a cache size limit in Premiere: Preferences → Media Cache → set max to 20–50 GB
  2. Move cache to an external SSD: In Preferences, change the cache location to a fast external drive
  3. Delete cache after finishing a project: Make it part of your project wrap-up workflow
  4. Run a monthly scan: Use CacheClear to catch caches from all creative apps at once

Find all creative app caches in 60 seconds

CacheClear scans Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut, and Logic Pro. Every cache file labeled safe or review.

Download CacheClear — Free Scan

FAQ for video editors

Will clearing cache break my projects?

No. Cache is temporary preview data. Your actual project files, media, and exports are untouched. Premiere and After Effects will just rebuild the cache when you reopen a project.

Why does Premiere use so much cache?

Premiere creates .pek (peak) files for audio waveforms, .ims files for accelerated decoding, and .cfa files for conformed audio. Every clip you import gets cached — and it's never automatically deleted.

Should I clear cache before or after export?

After. The cache speeds up your timeline during editing. Once you've exported, the cache is no longer useful for that project.