I noticed on my MAC that the After Effects disk cache folders took up 400GB of space, even though I told it to only use 100GB. I run my disk cache on an SSD so space is valuable.
I investigated and realized that every time After Effects has a new version update, it creates a new disk cache folder for that new version number (ie. 12.2). However, the disk cache folders for all the previous versions (11.0, 12.0 and 12.1) all remain on the hard drive wasting 300GB of space.
If you're not using disk cache or didn't update from previous versions then none of this will apply to you.
To empty the 12.x abandoned disk cache space...
- Just click on the "Empty Disk Cache" button in the After Effects settings
- You can also manually delete the 12.0 and 12.1 folders from /Users/(username)/Library/Caches/Adobe/After Effects/ assuming you have the current 12.2 version folder.
To empty the 11.x abandoned disk cache space...
- This has to be done manually and is located in the /Users/(username)/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects/11.0/ folder
- Delete the folder that starts with /Adobe After Effects Disk Cache... (ie. "Adobe After Effects Disk Cache - Peter’s iMac.noindex")
In OSX, the User's library folder is hidden so you will have to first unhide it to manually delete disk cache folders...
- In finder, go to your user home folder
- Next, from the finder menu select VIEW -> SHOW VIEW OPTIONS
- Finally, add a checkmark beside "Show Library Folder" in the view options window
-Pete