Photoshop temp folder accumulation.

[HaseebM]

Nearly 2 gb worth. Anybody do the clean up of temp folders regularly? I did not realize Photoshop utilizes temp folders every time image is opened.

[James G]

Haseeb,
Not sure which folder you are referring to.
If its the Bridge CS/ Cache, you can set its size in Bridge preferences, and can also either optimise the cache or purge it entirely. (I optimise it at irregular intervals)
I also set up the Bridgge/CS6 cache on a separate physical drive (not C drive)

The only other temp file I am aware of sits in C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Temp

I have never had the need to empty it . My understanding is that the folder is emptied automatically when each session ends.
I suppose if for some reason sessions end abnormally, this might not happen, and then it might need manual action. At present it is very small on my system.

Regarding general housekeeping on my system I use a free utility from Piriform, called CCleaner.

I run it after every session on shutdown, takes 30 secs usually.

[IzzieK]

I do the same as James, Haseeb...I do not direct my PS cache on the C Drive. I use a separate drive for it so I can empty it at will. I also use CCleaner.

[mrinmoyvk]

Not sure if PS has its own cache which is not recognized by windows.
General windows disk cleanup once in month or twice a month is more than enough to keep the system working fine.

Just make sure that you have your OS drive 50% free space.

[swanseadave]

Another vote for the excellent CCleaner.I use it regularly.

[James G]

Haseeb,
just to clarify my earlier post

The only other temp file I am aware of sits in C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Temp

I checked the contents of the Temp folder and found a sub folder 'Photoshop_Crashes' which was empty. I suspect that abnormal end of session may place information there, but when the next normal session finishes, this folder is/should be automatically cleared....

A generic search of my C drive for Photoshop showed no other large or temporary non-system files.

Most of my processing is done on a desktop system. My CS6/ACR Cache which sits on a separate drive is currently at 70.6 Gb, after compacting.
It is allowed a maximum size of 200Gb, and in ACR it is sized to hold up to 250,000 items. I store all image settings in sidecar files (*.XMP), and keep 100% previews in cache.

Arguably overkill, but when I built my current system it was relatively cheap (£100) to add an additional 2 Tb drive.
I also partitioned and set 2x500 Gb scratch drives for the operating system.

I use a laptop for shoots when away from home. Since I only wish to secure rather than process images under those circumstances, I have much smaller allocations. 10 Gb for Cache, 10,000 items max, and I do not store 100% previews.
I have still set up logical drives for data, cache and scratch which are separate from the O/S, and I use a 1 Tb USB connected drive which mirrors the data drive on the laptop for additional security.

Too many years working in IT ....

[HaseebM]

Thank you everyone for the feedback. I have re-located my images from SSD C drive to E. Hopefully the temp will not show up. I use a lot of ACR for initial processing, however never did once my PS crash. The temp folder that I checked was from the 'start' menu and typing in %temp% and opening that folder. ( I checked now and find only empty folders ).

James you mention abnormal end of session, many times I open some random image to try a set of process and when not satisfied, close PS without saving. Hope this isn't abnormally ending the session? Thanks.

Btw, my 'purge cache' shows 10 GB. Should I reduce this?

[HaseebM]

Installed CCleaner, boy its fast, thanks. When I told my children this they laughed.

[proseak]

Photoshop uses a dedicated "scratch disk" - set it's location in Preferences>Performance.

It usually clears on exit, but if it hasn't you can clear it manually.

[plugsnpixels]

I notice the temp location when I drag a photo from Facebook to edit for someone, and TemporaryItems (Mac) is the default save location. But as discussed above, that location is cleared out either by PS itself or the system. That's why it's called "Temporary" ;-)

[James G]

Haseeb

James you mention abnormal end of session, many times I open some random imaghttps://blogs.adobe.com/crawlspace/2012/10/how-to-tune-photoshop-cs6-for-peak-performance.htmle to try a set of process and when not satisfied, close PS without saving. Hope this isn't abnormally ending the session?

No this is basically a normal closure. 'Abnormal' would usually be accompanied with an error message... something like 'Application is not responding and is being closed,

To be honest Photoshop itself is very stable. It is more likely to occur if your system becomes unstable or freezes because of other programs causing problems... forcing a shutdown without being able to close Photoshop properly.

As regards your second question...

my 'purge cache' shows 10 GB. Should I reduce this?

Its not so easy to answer. The cache holds thumbnails etc which enable faster opening of the images. This is particularly the case for Bridge. Basically the more images there are in a folder, the longer it will take to display the thumbnails, and then the 'full' image if you select it. So when you first open a new folder after a shoot, you will see that it takes longer for the thumbnails to appear on screen, than if you open it later. I estimate that displaying them in Bridge is about 10 times faster if thumbnails are already in cache.
Once the cache fills , new thumbnails will be placed in cache by deleting the oldest.

If you purge the cache, all the thumbnails will be cleared, so you start from scratch again.
If you compact the cache you are basically defragging it... I have never seen more than about 5% of the used space recovered.

So do you need to downsize?
If you are short of disk space it will give you back space to use for other things, but in all seriousness, if your system is that constrained you need to get more disk space.

If you are only interested in getting the fastest access to you recent shoots and are not too fussed about waiting for old/archived folders to load' then you should only downsize your cache if you have an immediate use for the disk space.

In my case, I have 12+ years of photoshoots archived on a RAID storage system. I prefer to be able to restore image thumbnails from the archive in the shortest time possible, because I regularly look back over previous shoots.
I have in excess of 35000 images (raw source) and maybe 3000 processed PSD files. As a result I have opted for a large cache size.
Ultimately though, I could downsize my cache dramatically assuming I only really want fast loading for my current shoots. I suspect 10 Gb would be more than enough.

If you are interested in optimising Photoshop performance generally you may find the attached link of interest. It gives a good summary of the key areas to manage.
https://blogs.adobe.com/crawlspace/2...rformance.html

cheers,  James

[James G]

Mike, I'm sure I can answer that one if I really think about it
James

[HaseebM]

Photoshop uses a dedicated "scratch disk" - set it's location in Preferences>Performance.

It usually clears on exit, but if it hasn't you can clear it manually.

This I have done.

[HaseebM]

Haseeb



No this is basically a normal closure. 'Abnormal' would usually be accompanied with an error message... something like 'Application is not responding and is being closed,

To be honest Photoshop itself is very stable. It is more likely to occur if your system becomes unstable or freezes because of other programs causing problems... forcing a shutdown without being able to close Photoshop properly.

As regards your second question...


Its not so easy to answer. The cache holds thumbnails etc which enable faster opening of the images. This is particularly the case for Bridge. Basically the more images there are in a folder, the longer it will take to display the thumbnails, and then the 'full' image if you select it. So when you first open a new folder after a shoot, you will see that it takes longer for the thumbnails to appear on screen, than if you open it later. I estimate that displaying them in Bridge is about 10 times faster if thumbnails are already in cache.
Once the cache fills , new thumbnails will be placed in cache by deleting the oldest.

If you purge the cache, all the thumbnails will be cleared, so you start from scratch again.
If you compact the cache you are basically defragging it... I have never seen more than about 5% of the used space recovered.

So do you need to downsize?
If you are short of disk space it will give you back space to use for other things, but in all seriousness, if your system is that constrained you need to get more disk space.

If you are only interested in getting the fastest access to you recent shoots and are not too fussed about waiting for old/archived folders to load' then you should only downsize your cache if you have an immediate use for the disk space.

https://blogs.adobe.com/crawlspace/2...rformance.html

cheers,  James

Thank you James for your detailed explanation. No I am not constrained for space as I have a 1TB HD but the SSD is 120GB and may fill out over time. I will of course upgrade to a faster and heavier SSD by then.

I don't seem to have this issue of folder accumulation now or perhaps this may have occurred when I updated Creative Cloud as I saw lots of Adobe icons. Now all I see are folders which are empty.